Not Ready To Make Nice
by Liv Wilder
Summary: Post-Ep for '47 Seconds'. "I need a word with you." Castle's voice cuts through the hubbub of the bullpen even though he has it purposefully toned low. Low and rough, scraping at his vocal cords with a touch of something dark and smoky that tugs at Kate's gut, exciting and scaring her in equal measure.
1. Chapter 1 - Mad As Hell

_A/N: This is a 'write your way out of a hole', post-ep for '47 Seconds' that's been sitting in a folder on my desktop for a little while. I have the next two chapters already written, so should be a fairly quickly completed little fic, exploring an alternative route out of their messy, miscommunication and failure to meet halfway, or anyway really, at that point in time. _

_The tone is vaguely inspired by the Dixie Chicks' song, 'Not Ready To Make Nice', i.e. angry, and the title and chapter headings are a direct lift of lyrics. No copyright infringement is intended._

_The story picks up right after Castle leaves the precinct at the end of the episode, after Kate said 'So I guess it's just us', when she asked the boys out for a drink and they begged off, leaving only her and Castle. Only this time, after he leaves, he comes back..._

* * *

_'Forgive, sounds good  
Forget, I'm not sure I could  
They say time heals everything  
But I'm still waiting' _

_**\- Dixie Chicks**, 'Not Ready To Make Nice'_

* * *

_**Chapter 1: Mad As Hell**_

_[Episode Recap]_

_BECKETT*  
You know, now that the case is done…what did you want to talk about?_

[Beckett waits expectantly]

CASTLE  
Nothing. Nothing important anyway. I'm gonna head home. Night.

[Beckett is confused by his distance]

BECKETT  
Good night.

[Beckett ponders Castle's attitude change as he walks to the elevator. He steps in and glares at her as the doors close.]

* * *

"I need a word with you." Castle's voice cuts through the hubbub of the bullpen even though he has it purposefully toned low.

Low and rough, scraping at his vocal cords with a touch of something dark and smoky that tugs at Kate's gut, exciting and scaring her in equal measure.

Her face visibly brightens at the sight of her partner's surprise reappearance. "You came back," she blurts unconsciously, unable to hide her pleasure. "Sure. I have some paperwork to file, but after that I'm all—"

"_Now_, Kate."

_I'm all yours_.

That is what she means to say, but he cuts her off before she can get the words out. He wouldn't hear it in any case, the sentiment and the truth behind that bold or off-hand statement, whichever way you choose to look at it. He's not in the mood or the right frame of mind to pick up that hook and do anything with it tonight.

A couple of detectives and a uniform chatting in a pre-shift huddle at a nearby desk turn at the sound of Castle's voice and they stare at the partners, something invisible shifting in the air between them that captures the attention of these strangers.

Kate keeps her tone even when she replies. "Of course. What do you need?"

Castle's forceful use of her first name, the way it seems to burn on his tongue with disdain - as if disdain were some newly acquired taste sensation sitting somewhere unpleasant between sour and umami – _that_ is what gets her attention.

She's tired. It's been a long stressful few days with the bombing and the heightened profile of the case. It felt good to get that kid in the box and push him as hard as she could today. But now that they've closed the case and found the actual bomber, her energy reserves are low.

She'd been thinking about asking Castle out for a drink tonight to celebrate, maybe blow off some steam, had been thinking about it all day before she actually asked. But he disappeared on her for several hours and she has no idea where he went, and then his unexplained mood not minutes ago...

So she's more than glad that he's back, even if he does look a little on the tense side.

* * *

Castle enters the break room, waits by the door for her, solicitous as ever, and this is all that Kate sees: Rick Castle, her partner, her friend, and the most chivalrous man she knows. She completely misses the strain in his body: the stiffer than normal posture, the gnarled wrap of his fingers around the door, knuckles blanched white because his grip is so tight. She's in a different frame of mind from him, a wholly more hopeful frame of mind. So she misses every last clue to his mood and as a result, this is how she is when he strikes – totally caught off guard.

"You lied to me."

Kate pivots to look at him, the words failing to register even now.

She smiles, raising her eyebrows brightly. "I'm sorry?"

"You're_ sorry_. Is that it?"

She frowns, confusion crinkling her brow and marbling her eyes. "No. Wait. Castle, back up. What are you talking about?"

He gives her a minute for her brain to rewind the audio. And then he sees perfectly the second she rehears his accusation.

"Lied. Yeah. Got it now?" he asks, watching the cloud of miscomprehension clear from her irises to be replaced with cold, stark knowledge mixed together with gut-churning fear.

Kate swallows hard, her mouth parching suddenly. "I can explain." She says the words, and in her head they come out clearly. But in reality they are strangled and weak, choked upon, because she knows there is no explaining this. Not really.

"You know, I was on my way out of here tonight," Castle tells her, ignoring her offer to explain in favor of offering up a little explanation of his own. "But then I got inside that elevator out there," he adds, pointing out towards the exit, "and…and I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, Kate."

"Couldn't do what?"

"And do you wanna know why?"

"I—I'm sorry. Why what?" She frowns, unable to keep up all of a sudden.

They seem to be talking over one another and Castle's soliloquy is disturbing. He's talking as if he can't even hear her at all. She's been waiting for this to happen in some shape or form for a long time. Months, in fact. But she thought they were getting to a place where her lie, okay lies, would become an irrelevancy in the face of her forward momentum; of her returned feelings for him. But he's beaten her to the punch line, and now anything she says will sound hollow, a lie, bad or worse.

"Because I'm _done_," he tells her forcefully, getting right up in her face.

She can feel the warm puff of his breath on her lips causing her skin to prickle with pleasure despite the dire situation. "You're—?"

He shakes his head, his eyes cloudy and grey, holds his hands up in front of him as if to ward her off though she has yet to move a muscle. "Yeah. I'm done. I am _done_ pretending, running, hiding, tiptoeing around, and making excuses for my feelings. I'm done feeling like I'm not good enough or…or that I don't measure up."

"Castle, who _ever_ said that?" gasps Kate, her expression horrified.

"No one."

"So, why—"

"Doesn't matter. It's how you make me _feel_, Beckett."

* * *

Kate presses her fingertips to her forehead. Her nose touches her palm and her mouth is concealed behind the heel of her hand. Her fingers are ice cold and they burn her skin where they touch her clammy brow. She shakes her head and then removes her hand, raising her eyes to find the furious blaze of her partner's hurt, angry gaze.

"Rick…no," she whispers, still shaking her head. Panic flares in her chest as he backs away from her. "No!" she says again, more forcefully this time, moving towards him, her hand outstretched.

Castle appears on the point of leaving, and a demand, a plea, a cry of some sort forms tight as a ball in Kate's chest, threatening to explode out of her, because she has to stop him. She has to straighten him out once and for all. But he simply closes the door firmly until the latch pops into place with a resounding click and then he turns back to face her.

"Start talking," he demands, roughly pulling out a stool and indicating for her to sit.

Kate stares at his polite, yet forceful gesture. "Maybe here isn't the right place to—"

"Start. Talking." He repeats the demand a second time, his voice low and deadly, and oh God, what has she done to this kind-hearted, generous, playful man.

Kate, compliantly for her, takes the stool he has pulled out for her and sits. Castle calmly waits for her to be seated and then he takes the stool opposite. Never not a gentleman, no matter the circumstance.

"I—"

Kate shakes her head, looks down at her hands clasped on the table in front of her. "I'm not sure where to… Where do you want me to start?" she asks uncertainly, looking to him for guidance.

"Wherever you want. But we're doing this tonight. We're doing this tonight and then—" Castle break off and shrugs.

"And then?" asks Kate, tilting her head to one side in an attempt to get him to meet her eyes.

"Fork in the road time," he mutters quietly, tapping the tips of his fingers against the scratched surface of the high top table with restless agitation.

"You talk and then we take whichever route is left."

_TBC..._

* * *

_*Credit to Script Line for the script excerpt at the start._


	2. Chapter 2 - Not Ready To Back Down

_A/N: I'm amazed by the response to this fic, since post-47 Seconds stories tread a well-worn path by now. But I can see from your reviews that the pain and dissatisfaction with the ending to that episode still cut deep. So thank you for joining me on this journey._

* * *

**Chapter 2: Not Ready To Back Down**

_Previously..._

_Kate shakes her head, looks down at her hands clasped on the table in front of her. "I'm not sure where to… Where do you want me to start?" she asks uncertainly, looking to him for guidance._

_"Wherever you want. But we're doing this tonight. We're doing this tonight and then—" Castle break off and shrugs._

_"And then?" asks Kate, tilting her head to one side in an attempt to get him to meet her eyes._

_"Fork in the road time," he mutters quietly, tapping the tips of his fingers against the scratched surface of the high top table with restless agitation._

_"You talk and then we take whichever route is left."_

* * *

The silence that follows this proclamation is uncomfortable. _Extremely_ uncomfortable. For all the progress they've made recently and for all the time Kate has spent in therapy - hell, she spent a lot of time in silence in that room in the beginning - she's still not comfortable being silent with him, not when there's an issue this big hanging between them. An issue about as big as one of the freaking electronic billboards in Times Square.

"I'm waiting."

His prompt is quiet too, controlled, but no less stern and uncompromising than the demand that she talk issued just a minute or so before. It seems everything is weighing on what she says next, and usually she's good when the pressure is on, when the spotlight is turned on her. That is usually when she performs best, comes into her own, brings her A Game, shows the perp who's boss…

Yeah, the perp.

Only Castle isn't a perp and this isn't the box. This isn't even particularly private…or soundproofed for that matter, and she knows her nightshift colleagues can sniff out gossip at a thousand paces so…

"I will talk. I'll answer any questions you have, Castle…"

"Good."

"But not here."

Castle looks up sharply from the scratches he'd been studying on the table's worn surface. "I'm—_what_?" He shakes his head a little, as if surfacing from the crystal blue depths of a swimming pool and attempting to clear water out of his ears.

"I'll talk. Gladly. It's…it's time. You're right. But not here."

He glares at her across the table, his nerves frayed, muscles jumping under his clothes. Because he had to work himself up into quite a froth to get to this point. He had to work himself up to come back in here and demand anything of her, let alone this – a showdown, an explanation that will either be the making or the breaking of them.

He has crossed a line tonight and it will take all that he has not to simply cross back over to the other side; the safe, silent, tortured side, where he lets her off the hook, smoothes things over with a cup of coffee and a quip, simply turning the other cheek for the chance to continue living within her orbit, telling himself that is enough, and then hating every second of it.

* * *

Kate sees the moment he gives in to her request for a change of venue, watching him deflate like a balloon with a slow puncture.

"Fine," he mutters, scrubbing his hands down over his face before unfurling his long legs from the spars of the stool to stand. "Fine. But we're doing this," he adds, a parting shot of warning before they leave the relative privacy of the break room and reenter the slightly more muted fray of the bullpen at night.

Kate quickly collects her coat, her purse. She locks up her desk and shuts off her computer with one hand, while she scrawls a last minute note to the boys with the other.

Castle lurks like an angry teen over by the elevator doors, impatiently slapping his hand against the call button now and again. As a result, he's too far away to be able to read the content of the yellow sticky Kate peels off the small, square pad and affixes to the keyboard of Ryan's computer. Curiosity burns inside him like an impossible-to-reach itch. It's his own fault for walking away and leaving her to collect her things…for rushing her actually. He sighs, hears his mother's words inside his head like they're a vinyl record stuck on a loop, the needle fixed inside the same groove, refusing to jump or move on.

'_Richard, love is not a switch. You can't just turn it off.'_

He bites the inside of his cheek, flexes his fingers into fists and then opens them out again, drying his clammy palms on the back of his pants. "We'll see about that," he mutters to himself, disgusted at this inner monologue he's suddenly developed that's slowly turning him into a crazy person.

* * *

"Ready to go?"

Kate's voice is light, casual and unassuming as it wafts around him, alerting him to the fact that she has herself back under control again.

Castle's heart sinks like a stone. He was betting on the element of surprise when he came back tonight – going on the attack to get the jump on her, to throw her off her stride long enough that she'd drop her guard for once and he'd finally get at the truth. Now that he has lost that advantage, all he can do is trust her; trust her promise that she will talk. This realization creeps up his spine like a thief on a fire escape, leaving him feeling vulnerable and frankly doomed. He's not in a good place after today. He can taste defeat on his tongue having witnessing her cold betrayal firsthand - sudden, stark and shocking - through a tempered layer of mirrored glass.

He suddenly hates having to rely on his partner for his fate, to the point where he could gladly walk out of here right now, cut his loses and run without ever knowing the truth. Because she no longer feels like any partner he recognises.

So it takes everything he has left to make himself stick around; righteous anger and his innate curiosity for the story the only things keeping him here. At least that's what he tells himself.

Seems Kate Beckett isn't the only good liar around here.

* * *

"Right here…_waiting_" he grits out in response to her question, inwardly cringing at his own sarcasm laden remark; a remark Kate chooses to ignore or doesn't even register, because she simply brushes past him when the elevator doors slide open and heads on inside like normal.

In truth, she feels none of those things – neither calm nor casual - and this situation is anything but normal.

"So, where to?" he asks, as Kate reaches out to press the button labeled 'L' for lobby.

"Eh…" Blank. She has no idea.

Getting out of the break room - where they were taking up space and probably drawing too many interested looks – that was her only criteria when she first had designs on leaving the precinct. But as far as somewhere else to go…she has no clue.

"Mother is home with Alexis. Mixing up some revolting green and pink gunk, so..." he shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck as he stares at the elevator floor.

Kate frowns in puzzlement.

"Face masks and scalp treatments or something," he adds, by way of vague explanation when he chances a glance and sees Kate's confused expression. He manages to summon the faintest of painful smiles, though God knows how.

Kate nods and smiles back tentatively. He sounds almost like his old self for a second. "Right. _So_…loft is off limits," Kate concedes, since they will need privacy for this.

"Your place is probably not a good idea either," Castle states flatly, before she can even make that suggestion or think it through one way or the other.

"Not…_no_?" she asks, brow knitting, wondering exactly what he's getting at. Her apartment is quiet, certainly private, but it could be too—

Actually, she has no idea and wouldn't like to speculate and get that wrong either. "Okay, well…are you hungry? Thirsty? We could go to the Old Haunt."

"No. Somewhere quiet, neutral. Somewhere no one knows us," Castle insists, the bite of determination and simmering anger flattening his voice into a dead monotone.

He's cutting down their options – well, they still have the remainder of the entire city at their disposal - but he's calling the shots and yet not exactly offering up a solution.

* * *

The elevator doors slide open and Kate steps out first, her heels clicking on the marble tile, echoing past the Sergeant's desk and on out to the front door of the precinct with her partner in tow. So far, so normal.

She stops at the top of the worn stone steps and breathes in a lungful of cool night air, letting her eyelids drift closed for a second. The streets are quiet, traffic on the wane.

"How about we just walk for a bit, _hmm_? See where the mood takes us?" she suggests, as gently and as positively as she can. "We can talk on the way."

The way to where, exactly, she wants to stop and ask. But her thoughts are already straying to the vocabulary she'll shortly be needing to explain herself. Snippets of conversation that have passed between herself and Carter Burke, snatches of self-awareness that appeared like the sun through parting clouds now and again over that lost summer – there one minute and then gone the next when darkness descended as fast as it lifted on her worst days.

She shivers, though it isn't even cold outside, her mind consumed by a swirl of dark, painful memories.

Castle surprises her, jolting her out of her cave of introspection when he heads down the steps ahead of her, this all the answer she thinks she's going to get to her proposal that they simply walk and talk. But then he turns to wait for her when he reaches the sidewalk, his pause a kind of silent agreement. She sees his face in the glancing blow of the streetlight before he begins to move again, defeat and betrayal etched into the lines that run by his mouth, the deadness in his eyes. She can cope with anything but his disappointment - his disappointment in _her_ \- and suddenly she's grateful that he's here at all, even if he isn't talking.

_TBC..._


	3. Chapter 3 - Too Late To Make It Right?

_A/N: Thank you for your reviews and encouragement. _

* * *

_**Chapter 3: Too late to make it right?**_

_Previously..._

_"How about we just walk for a bit, hmm? See where the mood takes us?" she suggests, as gently and as positively as she can. "We can talk on the way."_

_The way to where, exactly, she wants to stop and ask. But her thoughts are already straying to the vocabulary she'll shortly be needing to explain herself. Snippets of conversation that have passed between herself and Carter Burke, snatches of self-awareness that appeared like the sun through parting clouds now and again over that lost summer – there one minute and then gone the next when darkness descended as fast as it lifted on her worst days._

_She shivers, though it isn't even cold outside, her mind consumed by a swirl of dark, painful memories._

_Castle surprises her, jolting her out of her cave of introspection when he heads down the steps ahead of her, this all the answer she thinks she's going to get to her proposal that they simply walk and talk. But then he turns to wait for her when he reaches the sidewalk, his pause a kind of silent agreement. She sees his face in the glancing blow of the streetlight before he begins to move again, defeat and betrayal etched into the lines that run by his mouth, the deadness in his eyes. She can cope with anything but his disappointment - his disappointment in her - and suddenly she's grateful that he's here at all, even if he isn't talking._

* * *

So the city opens its arms to them as they strike out for nowhere in particular.

At least they are still together, thinks Kate, balking at all the other directions their partnership could have taken after today; the potential unspooling of her life that she thought was behind her.

She could kick herself for her rash stupidity, for losing her cool the way she did and letting her secret come tumbling out so thoughtlessly after months of being so careful. She should kick herself for her cowardly complacency too, for letting this run and run unchecked, so many issues left unaddressed, hoping just a little more time might magically make everything slot into place.

Yeah, she could kick herself alright.

She's been revisiting the running order of their day since they left the break room, while she put on her coat and packed up her things, reassessing the mood she believed existed between them before things blew up in her face. She is finding that she is mistrustful of her own memory, given the speed with which things have turned hostile between them. But snatches of conversation come back to her, looks shared, moments of quiet understanding that passed between them, and in these she finds the proof she is looking for - proof of where she believed they were headed before she betrayed her partner so badly that he can barely look her in the eye.

Still, he's giving her a hearing at least and for that she is grateful. Time to focus on forward, not back.

* * *

'_I've been thinking…about the victims and all the opportunities they'll never have…and I don't want that to happen…'_

Castle's words and the look on his face when he said them – like he was opening up for something big – come back to her with such clarity that it hits her like a physical pain. That missed opportunity, whatever it was, she wants it back. She wants to see that look on his face – a look of hope and longing and faith in her. Not the disgust, hurt and disdain she feels radiating off of him now as he walks beside her, his stride long and purposeful though they have nowhere particular to be, no destination other than each other and a future either together or apart.

"You…you were listening outside interrogation," she says finally, gnawing on her lip once the words are out there.

She glances up at him, almost missing a punishing crack in the sidewalk as a result. Castle catches her elbow just in time to save her turning her ankle. But then he instantly lets go, the old barriers and boundaries firmly back in place.

She can't believe she didn't figure it out immediately – that he was there, that he overheard her, why he left, the change in his mood when he came back again. All the red flags that he raised – his cryptic remarks in the final interview with Leann West, how vicious they seemed, how out of character, and how much, when she thinks back, they seemed to be aimed at her.

'…_that's what your friend Jesse Friedman would call sinning by silence. It's not smart. It's not brave. It's just cowardly.'_

Just what kind of detective is she? Where were the skills she prides herself on – the intuition, the empathy? How could she have missed all those clues?

"Bobby Lopez, right? I should have figured it out. The coffee cup, it was still warm…I had no idea where you'd gone."

"You were busy," he says, caustically.

_Never too busy for you._

If she could, she would tell him that. But now doesn't seem like the right time. He's in a less than receptive mood. Facts are what count tonight, not flattery.

"That…that display in there was a mistake. What you witnessed. I got angry. Lost control. I should have talked to you privately about—"

"Why? Because you got _caught_? Because you got caught in a lie, Beckett? Is that it?"

Kate blows our a breath, panic clawing at her insides. She feels as if she's losing him. As if she's maybe lost him already. "No. Because it would have been the right thing to do. Because I owe you an explanation. Because—"

"You don't owe me anything," he spits reflexively, but they both know he doesn't mean it. And they both know that it's not true either.

"Castle, that's not— I owe you my life…in so many ways."

Literal _and_ figurative.

He hisses or sighs or makes some other noise of dismissal she's never heard from him before. His curt indifference shakes her. This is a side to him she doesn't know, hasn't seen before. She wonders if Meredith or Gina—

"I owe you more than I can ever repay," she says quietly, more to herself than for him to hear, shaking off thoughts of his ex-wives and the pain they may or may not have caused him. She has no knowledge of that and no business thinking that way; she's not in their league for a whole number of reasons.

* * *

They walk on in silence, their route taking them downtown along Center Street. They cross over White Street, past the Tombs, a white Corrections Department transportation bus parked up outside, and move relentlessly on towards the white granite facades of the Civic Center district of Manhattan with its courthouse buildings and the leafy triangle of Foley Square.

The silence between them gnaws at Kate until she can't take it anymore. She can't ask him what he's thinking or how he's feeling, where her chances of recovering any of this lay. All she can do is talk more, explain more and hope she draws some kind of a response from him that lets her see inside his head.

This role reversal sucks.

The silvery façade of Frank Gehry's _New York_, all 76 stories, the second tallest residential building in the Western hemisphere, beckons in the distance, and Kate heads towards its ribbon of light for want of a better plan.

"Castle, I'm sorry. I should have talked to you…explained. But time went on and…" She falters. She's no good at this – apologizing, explaining herself, talking about her feelings.

"I imagine that gets tricky," he interjects, surprising her, since she's come to expect only grunts and brooding silence from him tonight. "I can see how silence might be preferable to…how would you put it?" he asks, looking directly at her before striding out across Worth Street, the open space of Thomas Paine Park opening up to their right. "Letting someone down gently?"

This last remark catches her off-guard. Why would she be letting him down gent—?

_Oh! Oh, no! No, no, no._

* * *

Kate grabs for Castle's arm, roughly spinning him towards her. "Okay, you have to _stop_ walking and listen to me," she demands, her cheeks flushing at the boldness of her actions.

Castle stares back at her in surprise, noisily drawing air in and out through his nostrils, seething.

"No. No, see that's where you're wrong. I don't need to _do_ anything," he tells her, angrily shaking off her hand and resuming his march through Foley Square beneath the towering facade of the Supreme Courthouse building.

The courthouse rises above a 100-foot wide flight of steps to an imposing colonnade of ten granite fluted Corinthian columns. Above this sits a triangular pediment, 140-feet long, with a number of classical figures picked out in high relief. Along the huge roofline stand three statues representing Law, Truth and Equity. More apt symbolism would be hard to find, Kate thinks, wisely keeping this nugget to herself.

Ambient light bounces off the putty-white granite throwing a pearly glow down onto the street below, bleaching their faces to a ghostly pallor, and Castle strides on.

Kate stays where she is for a moment, raising her voice just a little. It's so quiet and sound bounces, hard surfaces everywhere, so it doesn't take much for him to hear her. "I thought you said you wanted to know the truth."

He stops dead in his tracks and turns to look at her sharply. But the single word that comes out of his mouth is anything but sharp. He stares at her, blinking rapidly, his eyes softening the barest fraction the longer he looks. His mask slips for a second and something closer to a plea comes tumbling out, betraying his heartfelt need to understand. "Please," he whispers hoarsely, the voice of a man defeated by a love he can't control or outrun.

* * *

Kate feels a sudden need to protect him. She can see how much all of this is hurting him and how much his anger is costing him. He isn't an angry man by nature and that anger is sapping his energy, diminishing him in the same way anger seems to inflate the stature of crueler men.

"This way," she says quietly, catching up with him, gesturing towards City Hall Park, down past Chambers Street.

The Brooklyn Bridge is only a few hundred yards away, its pedestrian access the perfect 'get away from it all' path for them to take tonight. Where better to get a perspective on who they are and how they live and whether they can get past what she's done to see a way out the other side than from above and beyond this beautiful city of theirs, suspended over the East River on neutral ground.

"The bridge?" asks Castle, looking around him as if suddenly seeing the darkness, the few remaining tourists roaming this area at night, cyclists and pedestrians headed home to Brooklyn, the daytime flood staunched to a trickle instead of a flow.

Castle turns and looks behind him, walking backwards for a few paces. "How far have we come?"

"Not far enough," Kate offers, cryptically.

He faces front as they begin to ascend the gently sloping ramp of the bridge's pedestrian access, the headlights of on-coming, Manhattan-bound traffic strobing their bodies at well-spaced intervals.

"I'm not going all the way," he tells her, his face so serious and dark, his anger tangible in the tense brace of his shoulders and the set of his jaw.

Kate swivels her eyes to look at him, tempted to laugh at his unconsciously funny remark.

"All the way to Brooklyn, I mean," he quickly clarifies, as if he just heard himself and wants to leave no room for doubt.

"You're not going all the way…to Brooklyn?" she repeats, letting humor leak into her voice, since that's what he would normally do for her, no matter how inappropriate the moment. "Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?"

"Don't, Beckett," he snaps, evidently not a fan of her little joke.

"Oh, come on," she cajoles. "That was funny."

"Nothing about today is funny. If you understood that we wouldn't _be_ here."

"So it's okay for you to make light, to use humor as a coping mechanism, but the rest of us have to…what, Castle? Keep ourselves buried in misery? You know, I never figured you for a hypocrite."

"And I never figured you for a liar."

* * *

His words are like a slap. They're still walking, their ascent ceaseless now, their breathing a little more labored given the incline and the anger and recrimination swirling between them.

"I'm sorry." And "I deserve that."

They both speak at once, eyes fixed front, too scared to look at one another lest the horror of their situation sticks and they find that there really is no way back for them anymore.

Kate takes a few more steps and when she looks up, a cyclist is headed their way over the wooden boards of the bridge. She steps to her right, over the white line that divides the pedestrian route in two – one half for foot passengers, one half for cyclists and rollerbladers. Her shoulder bumps her partner's and she apologizes reflexively, as if she has just crossed some invisible line, and since when did they become so stiff around one another?

She hates this. She wants to fix it, free them both, and since she can't seem to find the right words she'll just have to start somewhere and keep stumbling around until she can make him understand.

"I didn't expect to be here…not for much longer. I thought I was following a path."

Castle slows to stare at her, his interest piqued instantly by her words. "A path? What kind of path?"

Kate keeps them walking, keeps them moving forward. "The predestined kind."

Castle shakes his head, miscomprehension drawing his forehead into a frown. "Kate, I don't—"

"My mom."

_TBC..._


	4. Chapter 4 - Round And Round

_A/N: __Thank you for your continued support. Just a reminder before you read this chapter that this is a work in progress. They have much to discuss, so you're only hearing a partial segment of Kate's mea culpa at this point. It's too early to judge, is what I'm saying. ;)_

__Happy Birthday wishes to my friend, BlueOrchid96. This chapter is dedicated you, CB. xoxo__

* * *

**Chapter 4: Round And Round**

_Previously..._

_"I didn't expect to be here…not for much longer. I thought I was following a path."_

_Castle slows to stare at her, his interest piqued instantly by her words. "A path? What kind of path?"_

_Kate keeps them walking, keeps them moving forward. "The predestined kind."_

_Castle shakes his head, miscomprehension drawing his forehead into a frown. "Kate, I don't—"_

_"My mom."_

* * *

_My Mom._

Those two words shut him right up. This is the story that lurks at her core - the bedrock of her adult existence - and it rocks him every time she brings it up. Because as far as he knows, _he_ is the only one she ever discusses this painful piece of her personal history with, and whether that's because he pushes or because she trusts him, he doesn't know. But he knows which answer he prefers. He feels the weight of responsibility every time she shares another little fragment of herself with him, so he prepares to shut up and he listen.

"Go on," he encourages, unable to shake the flint from his voice, despite wishing he could find something softer to offer her, the pain of being lied to, of being made a fool of lodged in his gut like the blade of a knife buried all the way up to the hilt.

"When she was on a case, you know a pro bono, gut-churning, all-consuming, life is fiercely unfair kind of a case—"

"The kind you deal with about eighty percent of the time, you mean?" Castle cuts in; bold in his candor.

Kate darts a look at him, because she senses in that one dry remark that he does understand. "Yeah, that kind. It was as if she was on rails, Castle, running that puzzle down until she got off at the other end with the thing solved…or new ground broken, new case law made if she had to."

"Sounds like a tenacious lady."

"She was. But…"

Kate slows her pace as they near the middle of the bridge, the cat's cradle of steel cables stretching out to welcome them with beckoning fingers.

"But?"

"Looking back, I'm not sure how much of a good thing that was." This admission costs her, has only come to her after hours of professional therapy and years of quiet soul searching.

"Why?"

"Her passion for justice made her blind to the dangers."

Castle can't believe he's hearing this particular nugget of insight from Kate Beckett of all people. He has a strong urge to say something sarcastic about kettles and pots, but he manages to suppress it at the last minute lest she shut down and stop talking.

"She was a lawyer," argues Castle. "A _lawyer_, Kate. There shouldn't have been any dangers."

"Yeah, and I'm a cop and I'm _not_ oblivious. Still almost got me killed though. Being too…too _focused_."

"I…I still don't see—"

"You have a family…" Kate shrugs, "…you have to make sacrifices. You have to learn to compromise. That adage about having it all is…it's a myth sold to us by glossy magazines and movies. It's not possible and it's not real. Not when you're doing a job like mine," she explains, displaying all the things she's learned with the power of hindsight.

"You don't believe you can combine motherhood with a career?" he asks, surprised to hear this coming from her and still unsure what it has to do with him.

"No. I believe you can, but I think you have to bend a little…change. I think you have to let go of the obsessive need you once had, whatever that may be. Let some of your drive be channeled into your family's welfare. Not just your job. Especially when that job comes with danger attached."

"I…I guess I can see that. More so after Meredith and Alexis."

"Right," nods Kate, quietly agreeing, wondering how they have each ended up bringing Castle' ex-wife into this discussion.

Castle is evidently wondering the same thing. "So…I mean, forgive me for being blunt here, but what does any of this have to do with you lying to me?"

"I'm not avoiding anything, I promise. I was just getting to that part."

"Well, how about you get there faster," he nips in frustration, raking his fingers through his hair and blowing out a breath. "Look, I don't like this any more than you do. But we're here now and it's time to put an end to the lies, Kate. Once and for all."

Kate pauses, doesn't answer right away. She simply breathes for a second or two while she gathers her thoughts. The flag flying above the bridge tower snaps back and forth in the stiff breeze, urging her on.

* * *

"Right before Montgomery…well, you know, I felt as if I was so much like her. Maybe too much. I became so focused, so driven. I was obsessing over her case in a way I hadn't since I joined the Academy."

Kate pauses to look at him, the gesture making her sway a little so that their shoulders touch briefly. "You've seen me up close when I get the bit between my teeth enough to know—"

"That sometimes you need saving from yourself? Yeah, I've seen that," he admits, grimly.

"So it started to feel kind of inevitable that I would end up like her one day. Because of…of how alike we are."

Castle abruptly stops walking to look at her. "Wait. You're blaming your _mom_?"

"No," sighs Kate in frustration, shaking her head. "No. I'm…I'm trying to explain and obviously not doing a very good job of it."

"So...take your time. Make me understand."

She touches his arm briefly to get them moving again, unable to stay still until she gets through this, too full of nervous energy.

"I was always so proud of her, Castle. I still am. But we're the same, she and I, and that drive was getting me into trouble. People close to me…the thought that they could get hurt. I lost sight of that. Her case, the sniper, me getting shot…all tied together," she stumbles to explain.

"And if you carried on asking questions…"

"They wouldn't fail next time. That one thing I knew."

They both fall silent for a minute or so, quietly absorbing and digesting the things she's just said.

"Hey, and don't think I don't know that nothing I've said so far is really news to you. I know you came to see me, tried to get me to back off. I should have listened to you then…about a lot of things," she admits quietly, locking eyes with her partner to see if he understands the full extent of the admission she's just made.

Castle doesn't crow or claim credit like he would have done just the day before if she'd told him he was right. Kate misses that reaction from him, as strange as that sounds.

"Can we add stubborn to that list?" he asks, betraying the first hint of humor she's seen all night.

"Sure," nods Kate, with a slight lift of a smile. "We Beckett women are nothing if not stubborn. Just ask my dad."

* * *

They walk on in silence, the air around them briefly disrupted by the sudden passing of a fast-flowing cyclist.

"So, this is all very…illuminating. But you still haven't explained why you lied to me," Castle eventually points out.

Kate squirms within her own skin, the effort of having to excavate and revisit months of suppressed feelings making her extremely uncomfortable. But he needs to hear this. They both do. But her progress so far has been so painfully slow that she's frustrating herself right now.

"Ugh, Castle, why can't I do this?" she rages, finally letting him see her frustration. "We've known each other for years, been in more tight spots than most people face in a lifetime. Why can't I just say what needs to be said?" she asks, mostly rhetorically, her hands planted either side of her face, her cheeks flaming beneath at her own inadequacies.

"Maybe because you don't like to admit when you've made a mistake. But then who does? Just…just say it and then it can be over," he suggests, tersely.

Kate bites her lip and then she finally takes the plunge. "I do remember everything. Most of all I remember you tackling me to the ground. But, Castle, I didn't need to _hear_ you say anything that day to know how you felt. I already knew."

He looks at her with naked curiosity. "How? When?"

"_When?_ The night you came to my apartment…when we fought. I knew then for sure. But I suspected months before that, if I'm honest. And how? You were the only one who cared enough, were brave or…or stupid enough to try to get me to stop. _That_ and all the little things."

"So why didn't you set me straight?"

Kate turns to look at him, frowning. "Set you—"

"You could have just told me you didn't feel the same, spared us both embarrassment later on."

Kate continues to frown, deeply puzzled. "Embarrassment? What embarrassment? Is that what you meant about letting you down gently?"

Castle's eyes widen at her seeming miscomprehension. "This is all a big joke to you. My mother said—"

"Wait!" Kate stops walking, preventing Castle from moving any further forward with a firm hand to his arm. "You talked to _Martha_ about this?"

He shrugs, as if it's no big deal, expected even. "Well…yeah."

"_After_ you heard me talking to Bobby Lopez in interrogation? You talked to your mother?"

"Yes, she was—"

Kate tugs her jacket more tightly around her. "God, Castle," she mutters in frustration. "You couldn't have just stuck around and asked me yourself? You…you _ran_ to your mother for advice and then jumped to conclusions instead of talking to me?"

"I didn't jump to conclusions. She figured out a long time ago…how I felt about you. She urged me to come clean, to just tell you. So, I was bringing her up to speed on recent developments," he adds bitterly, though he can hear for himself what a pathetic mommy's boy this makes him sound.

"See, there you go again. Jumping to conclusions."

"I know what I heard," he growls back.

"No! You only _think_ you know, Castle," accuses Kate, angrily, feeling cornered.

"What makes you so sure that I'm wrong?"

"Because _I_ know what _actually_ happened. You should be talking to _me_, not gossiping with your mother."

"Martha didn't—"

"So you managed to jump to this conclusion all by yourself? Great. I should have known."

"Hey, I'm listening now. But I'm not hearing much explaining going on."

* * *

They've reached the milestone of the bridge's first stone tower, with its Gothic, arched passageways soaring underneath. Kate turns forty-five degrees and makes for the fence, gripping the railing as she stares back at the glittering skyline of lower Manhattan.

Fear and anger simmer inside her. Fear that she's lost him already no matter what she says at this juncture. Anger that he could misread her so badly; even if she is a closed book most of the time. He's supposed to be her partner…in everything. He was supposed to know.

"I left town to get over you. _Okay?_" She seethes her way through the words, her voice rising to overcome the whip of the breeze at this height above the East River. "Going to my dad's cabin wasn't about hiding out or recuperating," she confesses, her eyes dancing nervously over the jagged outlines of the buildings in the distance, her fingers tightly wrapped around the rusted railing for anchorage.

She risks a quick darting glance in Castle's direction to check he's still there, beside her, listening to her explain. "I went away to lick my wounds. To try to forget…_everything."_

Castle's expression is inscrutable – serious and grim – his voice leaden, flattened under the weight of grief and betrayal. "And by everything you mean—"

"The precinct, my old life…_you_. Mostly you."

_TBC..._


	5. Chapter 5 - Forget, I'm Not Sure I Could

_A/N: Thank you to those of you sticking with me on this slow, angsty journey. Your messages really make me smile, and boy could I use a smile. ;)_

_Hope everyone is having a restful weekend._

* * *

**Chapter 5: Forget, I'm not sure I could**

_Previously..._

_"I left town to get over you. Okay?" She seethes her way through the words, her voice rising to overcome the whip of the breeze at this height above the East River. "Going to my dad's cabin wasn't about hiding out or recuperating," she confesses, her eyes dancing nervously over the jagged outlines of the buildings in the distance, her fingers tightly wrapped around the rusted railing for anchorage._

_She risks a quick darting glance in Castle's direction to check he's still there, beside her, listening to her explain. "I went away to lick my wounds. To try to forget…everything."_

_Castle's expression is inscrutable – serious and grim – his voice leaden, flattened under the weight of grief and betrayal. "And by everything you mean—"_

_"The precinct, my old life…you. Mostly you."_

* * *

Kate bites her lip and drags her eyes upwards to look at him, to see if he gets it yet - her sacrifice.

"I see," he murmurs, slowly turning away from her until his back is to the city and he can rest against the railing as he digests this out-of-left-field bombshell.

Kate stares at him, willing him to understand what she did and why. "Yes, but _do you_?" she asks, ducking her head to find his eyes when he doesn't react any further than with those spare words.

Castle steals a glimpse at her, his jaw so stiff that it looks painful. She can hear him breathing over the noise of road traffic, over the thundering of her own heart.

Eventually, she reaches out and lays her hand on his forearm, her slender fingers gripping the fine fabric of his jacket, the heat of his body leeching through to warm her palm. "Castle, I was in love with you. _Hopelessly_ in love. But they were _coming_ for me. This was my mom and dad all over again. Alexis—"

"You took something from me!" he yells at her, the wind quickly whipping his voice away as if it is a distant rumble of thunder.

Kate startles, taking an involuntary step back at the sudden burst of volume, the way the sound booms out of his chest and into hers. "I—" She falters for a second in the face of his startling response to the words she had long thought were the key to it all; the key to unlocking the mystery that is them.

He cups his head in his hands as if in physical pain. "All that time you let me think…" he rails, his voice cracking, turning in a tight circle as her confession hits him over and over again.

"I was trying to keep you _alive_," she yells back, the pain of that decision still so fresh and so raw for her, even all these months later; even out the other side and back by his side where she belongs, where they both belong.

* * *

Castle turns to stare at her with a look of utter betrayal, his expression telling her that he doesn't understand her decision or her motivation at all.

"When I said the thing I remembered most about that day at the cemetery was you tackling me to the ground, it's because the split second between that bullet hitting my chest and your body covering mine was so terrifyingly slim. You tried to get in front of that bullet, Castle, and you almost made it, _dammit_."

Anger swirls in the cooling air between them. Acid burns Kate's throat, just as exhaust fumes fill her nostrils, the acrid combination making her feel nauseous, as she is once again swamped by vivid memories of that terrible day. Cold fear at what might have been creeps up her spine, chilling her from the inside out.

"Yeah, well, I failed," he says, dismissively, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort. "Too late the hero," he grinds out, once again turning away from her.

"Castle, look at me."

Nothing but the stubborn line of his back and the firm set of his broad shoulders greets her.

"Rick, please?" she whispers hoarsely, her throat dry, though her mouth is watering to the point where she could gag.

Still nothing. He firmly refuses to turn around and face her.

"Fine, have it your way. But you said you wanted me to talk, so you're just gonna have to stand there and listen," she tells him, breathing through her nose to get her roiling stomach under control.

"I came within a _second_ of losing you that day. Cats may have nine lives, Castle, but we don't, and our luck has been running out since the day we met. I couldn't stick around, knowing how I felt about you, and watch you sacrifice yourself for me the next time I got too close to the truth."

"_Really?_ _Really?_" he rages, finally spinning round to confront her. "Well, you know who _actually_ had to watch their partner, the woman they loved, slip away in the back of an ambulance covered in blood? Yeah, _me!_ That's who."

Kate startles again at the vehemence in his voice and the fire in his eyes.

"I had to watch you _die_, Kate, with your blood on my hands, and then I waited and waited for a call that never came. I got no closure. No chance to see you get stronger, to get well again. Just night after sleepless night of you dying in my dreams, followed by long empty days without so much as a text."

* * *

There are tears in Kate's eyes now, and Castle is a blurry outline in front of her – as indistinct and vague as she tried to make him become during those long, lonely weeks in exile up at her dad's cabin.

She takes a breath to try and say something, anything. "I had to," she whispers desperately, her words instantly drowned out when Castle dives back in again.

"So you were traumatized. We all were. We could have worked through it together. But, no, you _stole_ that time from me. You made the decision for me, Kate. _Without me_. You left me thinking you'd heard me and that you didn't give a damn. Then you lied to my face about it. I had some hope when you promised to call. But then…_nothing_. You left me believing you were happy with Josh, and all I wished for each day was that you were getting stronger, healthier and that you _were_ happy…somewhere…whether you were with him or not."

Kate reaches for the railings again, the power of Castle's words, of the hideous picture he's painting, socking her in the gut and making her sway. She thought she'd made the ultimate sacrifice for him, and only now does she understand that Castle paid as big a price for her decision as she did.

"I've made such a mess of things," she admits, looking down at the wooden boards beneath her feet, shuddering when she hears the massive understatement in her own words.

"Ya think?" he snaps back, with more venom and sarcasm than she's ever heard from him before.

"I'm sorry won't get me anywhere…not…not after that, I know. But if you'll just let me explain, Castle. Maybe…maybe I can make you see things from my perspective."

"From _your—_" Castle whirls round to stare at her, wide eyed with indignation. "Are you even _listening_ to yourself? Yet again it's all about you," he declares, turning his back on her, as if he can no longer bear to look, just as soon as these words are out of his mouth.

* * *

Kate swallows thickly around the pain of threatening tears, which are constricting the muscles in her throat, and then she tries to take a deep breath. "You were right. When you came to my apartment and accused me of hiding in nowhere relationships with men I didn't love…you were right. I was seeing Josh but…but I was already in love with you."

She pauses to try to assess if it's even worth continuing at this point, traffic noise the unromantic soundtrack to this soul baring exercise.

"Castle, can you even hear me?"

He makes no movement one way or the other, so she searches for words, for some explanation that might mean something to him.

"After I came round in the hospital, you were the first person I thought of, the first person I wanted to see. But my dad sat down with me to…to explain the surgery, the complications, along with the doctor. Josh was there too, I think…" she tails off, her mind briefly wandering back to that day: hooked up to machines, the constant beeping, the weight in her chest, the exhaustion, the creeping depression and the omnipresent threat of pain.

"Castle, I wanted to see you so badly, to talk to you about everything I was going through. By that point…that's how things were for us. Remember? You were my _best friend_. I told you everything."

"No…no, not quite everything," he cuts in, throwing her a wounded look.

"Okay, okay, so I may have left one major thing out," she concedes, once more to her partner's turned back. "But do you have any idea how terrifying a prospect it was to risk everything we had on the off-chance that we would make it? That we could be more?"

"The _off-chance_?" asks Castle, glancing at her over his shoulder. "You knew that I was in love with you and you…well, you _say_ that you loved me too, and yet you only thought we had a _slim chance_ of making things work between us? Did you feel _anything_, Beckett? Anything at all?"

"I was scared, _okay_. I wanted to protect what we already had. I couldn't lose that, Castle, and then I didn't want to lose you."

"What does that mean?" he asks, tersely.

"I asked my dad to tell me everything that happened, to fill in the missing pieces after—" She shakes her head and shrugs. "He refused at first, thought I'd been through enough trauma. But then I started having these flashbacks when I slept. He sat next to my bed and watched me almost pull the drain out of my chest during one particularly bad episode. I think the doctors advised him to tell me the truth after that. Thought it might help me process it somehow. Deal with it better in daylight," she shrugs again.

* * *

Kate can tell from the slight movement in Castle's fingers where they grip the rail that he is at least listening to her, that her words might be getting through, even if they're nowhere good enough to change his mind about her.

"What you did for me that day—"

"You mean _tried_ to do?"

"It meant _everything_, Rick."

"That's what partner's do, Beckett," Castle replies, brusquely, trying to brush off his act of heroism or score another point, she isn't sure which.

Kate carries on as if she hasn't even heard him, because she knows he's lashing out because he's hurting. "But I knew then that if I wanted you to stay alive, I would have to let you go. I just needed to see you one last time."

"And how did that work out for you? Because I know how it worked out for me," he says, bitterly.

"I had to, Castle. Seeing you again only made that clearer to me."

She wanted to save him – spare him the loss she watched her father go through, save him from getting caught in the crossfire even, to spare his daughter the loss she suffered if the worst ever happened and being close to her got him killed.

"You looked— God, you looked _amazing_. I wanted to tell you so badly that I heard you and that I felt the same," she confesses, silent tears crawling down her cheeks. "But I knew then that I couldn't."

She sacrificed her own happiness to save him; sacrificed a happy future and a love she felt bone deep to keep her partner and his family safe.

"Why not?" he asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Alexis…mainly. You needed saving from yourself, Castle. You tried to take a bullet that was meant for me, while your daughter was standing just feet away from us, watching. What kind of message do you think that sent your daughter? _Hmm_? That her father cared more for his partner than he did for her future happiness…for his own life?"

"Maybe it taught her something about selfless acts," he throws back at Kate, the personal jibe in his accusation not falling wide of its intended mark.

"_Bullshit!_" snaps Kate. "That is bullshit and you know it. I _am _that teenager who lost her mother, Castle, and you know me well enough to know better than that. There is no heroism in that kind of personal sacrifice. Not where Alexis is concerned. Only a lifetime of damage, pain and regret. All you taught her that day is that in that moment you loved me more. You loved me to a fault and you taught her to resent me, if she didn't already for my own cowardly behavior towards you."

"Cowardly?"

"I should have told you how I felt back then or cut you loose. Staying with Josh too long…hell, starting anything with anyone was a mistake. I was able to control things, to keep one foot out the door in past relationships. But I knew there was no way you would ever let me get away with that kind of behavior if we started something. It would be all or nothing with you, and that thought terrified me. So I tried to deny my feelings for you in the hope that they would go away."

"How'd that work out?" he asks, witheringly.

"It didn't. You _know_ it didn't. Life, fate, the universe, whatever…it kept throwing us together in these insane life or death situations. You know, I meant what I said earlier today. The bombing made me think about all the things in my life that I've been putting off—"

"Kate, don't," he says, holding his hands up to ward her off when she takes a step closer to him. "We are _far_ from done here."

* * *

Kate shivers when a particularly strong gust of wind whips around the stone tower beside them, tossing her hair across her face and tugging her jacket open.

"You're cold," observes Castle, the first concern he's really shown for her since they left the precinct.

Kate looks around her then, as if realizing where they are all of a sudden, though she is the one who led them here.

"Would you mind if we went somewhere?"

"Somewhere?" he frowns.

"Yeah, a coffee shop, a bar…anywhere. You're right about not being done, but standing up on the Brooklyn Bridge for the rest of the night…" she shrugs. "Unless you have a death wish, I suggest we go somewhere warmer."

"There's an all night coffee shop down on Chambers Street. The Blue Note. We could go there."

"Sounds perfect."

"Actually, it's a bit of a wreck."

"Then it sounds even more perfect," she says, trying to offer him a smile, though her cheeks won't work, as they turn together towards Manhattan's sparkling skyline to attempt to continue their journey back to one another.

_TBC..._


	6. Chapter 6 - Forgive Sounds Good

_A/N: Just a reminder, guys, that this story is labelled 'angst' for a reason. Don't eat salted popcorn if you actually feel like sweet, that's all I'm saying. ;)_

_Thank you for your reviews and PM's. Slow and steady wins the race. So with that in mind, on we go..._

* * *

**Chapter 6: Forgive Sounds Good**

_Previously…_

_"I should have told you how I felt back then or cut you loose. Staying with Josh too long…hell, starting anything with anyone was a mistake. I was able to control things, to keep one foot out the door in past relationships. But I knew there was no way you would ever let me get away with that kind of behavior if we started something. It would be all or nothing with you, and that thought terrified me. So I tried to deny my feelings for you in the hope that they would go away."_

_"How'd that work out?" he asks, witheringly._

_"It didn't. You know it didn't. Life, fate, the universe, whatever…it kept throwing us together in these insane life or death situations. You know, I meant what I said earlier today. The bombing made me think about all the things in my life that I've been putting off—"_

_"Kate, don't," he says, holding his hands up to ward her off when she takes a step closer to him. "We are far from done here."_

_Kate shivers when a particularly strong gust of wind whips around the stone tower beside them, tossing her hair across her face and tugging her jacket open._

_"You're cold," observes Castle, the first concern he's really shown for her since they left the precinct._

_Kate looks around her then, as if realizing where they are all of a sudden, though she is the one who led them here._

_"Would you mind if we went somewhere?"_

_"Somewhere?" he frowns._

_"Yeah, a coffee shop, a bar…anywhere. You're right about not being done, but standing up on the Brooklyn Bridge for the rest of the night…" she shrugs. "Unless you have a death wish, I suggest we go somewhere warmer."_

_"There's an all night coffee shop down on Chambers Street. The Blue Note. We could go there."_

_"Sounds perfect."_

_"Actually, it's a bit of a wreck."_

_"Then it sounds even more perfect," she says, trying to offer him a smile, though her cheeks won't work, as they turn together towards Manhattan's sparkling skyline to attempt to continue their journey back to one another._

* * *

Getting down off the bridge seems to take longer somehow than the time it took to get up there, though they walk the exact same route back, retracing their steps over the worn wooden boards, now a little bruised and perhaps a little altered.

Maybe it's the contemplative silence they both fall into the minute they leave the waypoint of the stone tower behind them and turn back towards the city, following the downward tug of thick steel suspension cables to their end point and the twinkling city lights beyond. Not talking, or yelling, is less of a distraction, and their thoughts are given free reign to swirl and mingle as a result. They both quickly become lost inside their own heads.

Castle feels a sorrow that he's having trouble placing. He has just heard words from Kate that he long dreamed of hearing – that she loved him, was hopelessly in love, she in fact said - and yet her declaration has left him cold. He's not sure if it's her use of the past tense, or the fact that she has admitted deciding she would be better off trying to deny those feelings, both to herself and to him, that has sucked the pleasure out of finally hearing her say it. Whatever it is, he feels empty, joyless and numb inside where he expected to be fizzing with energy and brimming over with effervescent joy.

Kate, for her part, is struggling to deal with a maelstrom of competing emotions. Now that she has confessed her sins, she wants to fix the mess she has made so that they can be out the other side of this painful, turbulent trauma as quickly as possible. She knows what she wants and has spent a long time working towards achieving it. Now that her mind is set on moving things forward between them, now that her private shame is out in the open, she just wants to make it happen. For her there is no going back and failing is not an option either.

Castle, though, is in a wholly different, much darker frame of mind. He is wounded and confused, his brain struggling to catch up with the revised version of his own recent history that he's just heard. All the things he thought were real, all the facts he thought he knew, all the feelings – good and bad - that he felt were justified, suddenly are found to not be real or true at all. He feels as if he is walking on quicksand, as if the ground could give way beneath his feet at any second and he could be sucked under. Nothing in his life, at least where Kate is concerned, feels as if it has any solidity, any permanence anymore. His brain jumps back and forth over conversations that he now feels he may or may not have misinterpreted. Looks, feelings, touches, glances, all the time shared before, after, and in between; they all fall under the same cloud of scrutiny and suspicion.

Absorbing the implications of these changes is going to take a little time. And Kate will have to learn not to rush him if they are to profit from this first attempt at openness and honesty, this highly pressurized attempt to talk things through, so that they do not founder or squander the potential now waiting for them.

* * *

A couple comes walking towards them as they near the bottom of the pedestrian ramp at Park Row. The man is tall, about Castle's height, only less well built, and the woman is slightly shorter than Kate and blond. But their appearance is not so much the striking thing about them as their behavior. They are so clearly in love with one another – walking in sync, their arms entwined, shoulders and hips barely parting an inch with every step they take. The woman laughs when the man says something and then she looks up at him, her cheeks flushing and her eyes dancing, and Castle feels himself react to this sight as if to some phantom pain. This is what he wanted for himself and Kate, and until today he thought they were but hours or days away from that kind of closeness.

Kate catches him watching the younger couple, sees the slack misery in his features, the deadness in his eyes, and she impulsively reaches out to squeeze his dangling forearm.

"I'm so sorry, Castle," she says, just loud enough for him to hear.

He barely nods to acknowledge her apology and they continue on in silence.

Kate drops her hand from his arm and turns her head to watch the couple as they pass. She finds herself smiling at the man's low, rumbling laugh, as drawn in as his wife or girlfriend seems to be by his infectious humor. Castle is the man who does this for her: who brightens her darkest days and makes her smile no matter what. If only she had seen the true value in that, risked her heart to trust him more, to trust herself, before now. No man she has ever spent time with in the past could make her laugh the way Rick Castle does, and everything else that she loves about him set aside, and there is a lot about this man that she loves, making her laugh is one special skill. A gift, in fact.

She shakes her head at all the ways she's screwed this up – thinking, in her own imperfect world, that she was sparing him pain and keeping him safe when she left the city and cut him off, when all she actually did was make him feel abused, taken for granted, and rejected, not to mention putting herself through a heap of unnecessary misery in the process.

God she's a mess.

* * *

The Blue Note coffee shop, on the other hand, is thankfully less of a wreck than Castle seemed to suggest.

"You undersold this place. It has its charms," she tells him, as he steps forward to open the battered glass door for her.

Having cut through leafy City Hall Park behind the Italianate Tweed Courthouse building - the second oldest building in New York and now home to the Department of Education - they headed out onto Broadway, before turning sharp left onto Chambers Street.

The Blue Note is situated halfway down the block: an independent coffee shop with a blue and red blinking neon sign in the window. The sign is in the shape of a coffee cup with steam rising endlessly from within its non-existent, two-dimensional depths. The colors remind Kate of the cherry bar of a squad car, cops and coffee never too far apart on the spectrum of symbolism. The sign reminds Castle that some things simply go on and on in this world, relentless and unfeeling, no matter what is happening to you personally. There is always a bigger picture, even if that picture does have a few of its neon tubes broken and doesn't look so sharp or modern anymore.

As Castle wrestles the door open, a bell tinkles above them heralding their arrival. Several heads turn to look in their direction. Inside the coffee shop, sitting on red, pleather-covered high top stools, are a couple of uniform cops, their hats resting on the countertop, their thick fingers wrapped around scratched mugs of coffee. Another loud group of four NYPD beat cops occupies a booth halfway down the long, narrow room, their joshing voices rising and falling to drown out the light background music, as jokes and insults are relentlessly traded between them.

Kate stalls in surprise just inside the entryway and the men at the bar look up, immediately raking their eyes up and down her body as if they cannot believe their luck.

Castle careens into Kate's back with the suddenness of her abrupt stop and he is forced to reach out to prevent himself from physically lurching into her. Naturally, his hands land on her hips and her warm skin scorches his palms, immediately sending a painful stab of longing through his chest. Fast as he can, he makes to remove his hands from her body. But Kate surprises him, dropping one of her own hands down to cover the hand that's currently resting on her left hip. She turns into him, their stomachs and chests almost touching.

* * *

"You didn't tell me this was a cop hangout," she hisses, thumbing over her shoulder at the thin blue line behind them.

"I didn't know," he shrugs, the apology already written in his features.

"Castle—" she hisses, her tone accusatory, quickly following it up with a frustrated sigh. She runs her hand through her hair and glances over her shoulder at the now-silent ranks of her fellow officers who are, to a man, now looking their way.

"We can go somewhere else," offers Castle, his hand still trapped against her hip under the light pressure of her fingers, which have somehow managed to worm their way in between some of his. He breathes slow and shallow to compensate for his racing heart.

"I— You know what, don't worry about it. I should have figured it out for myself. All night coffee shop this close to One PP…bound to attract this kind of crowd. Let's just…sit. They'll forget about us soon enough."

But when they turn around and make to find a table of their own, Castle has to fight the urge to drag his partner out of there or ask for her gold shield so he can flash it at these monkeys. All of them are staring at her, taking her apart, piece-by-piece, with their greedy, beady little eyes.

Kate can feel the tension coming off Castle in waves. She doesn't want a scene and she certainly does not want these uniforms knowing her business. So despite having let go of Castle's hand when they made a move to find a table, she reaches back for it now, gripping onto his fingers and then sliding her palm all the way back until it kisses his and she can tow him along behind her, urging him closer so that they look like a couple, even if they technically aren't one yet, hoping that the men will leave them alone once they know that she's taken.

Castle is reluctant to play this charade at first, or he doesn't understand what she's trying to do. But eventually, the pressure of her hand in his is too great to ignore and too hard to shrug off. Combined with the low whistle one of the men emits as they reach the row of booths, he makes a choice: lets her tug him closer until her back is within a couple of inches of his front, and then he drops his free hand to her left hip and they walk the length of the coffee shop, joined together as if they belong this way, as if they share this kind of close physical connection all the time. It's too easy and it's too hard all at once; a trap he could fall right into without any difficulty.

* * *

As soon as they reach an empty booth at the back of the room, Castle lets go of Kate's hand. The curve of her sharp hipbone moving beneath his fingers is a memory he won't be able to forget for a long time.

They sit down opposite one another, sliding along the bouncy pleather bench until they hit the wall and are obscured from prying eyes.

"You okay?" asks Kate, watching him carefully as she raises and lowers her lashes from the tabletop to his face and back.

Standing up on the bridge in near darkness confessing secrets to him was one thing, but sitting in a bright coffee shop facing one another to continue baring her soul is a whole other can of worms, and it's making her nervous.

"Yeah…uh, you know what, I'm just going to go visit the bathroom. Can you order for me? Just coffee, thanks," says Castle, looking equally stiff.

Kate nods, biting her lip as she watches him disappear. She knows how hard this is for him. But if she had known before, could she really say she would have done anything differently? She's not so sure she would have despite the pain her choices caused both of them.

* * *

By the time Castle comes back there are fresh mugs of coffee and two servings of pie sitting on the table in front of them. His face looks different somehow, his eyes brighter or more alert, his skin fresher. Kate takes this as a sign of progress.

"You were gone a long time," she comments idly, probing her own slice of pie with a fork. "I was starting to get worried."

"Timing my bathroom breaks now, Beckett? What is this kindergarten?" he nips back, dropping his head down to stare at his lap in regret the second the words are out of his mouth and his irritation dies. "Sorry, that was—"

"_Deserved?_" offers Kate, with a wry smile. "It's okay, you can say it," she tells him, when he looks back up again.

Castle takes a swig of coffee, enjoying the hot burn of bitter liquid down his throat. He fills his mouth with it, lets it sit there for a few seconds before swallowing. As good as any IV bag of fluids, he thinks, almost instantly feeling better when the caffeine begins to hit his bloodstream.

"You got pie," he comments, stating the obvious, before picking up the fork sitting at his place setting and spearing a plump piece of peach, lifting it from its golden, gelatin throne.

"You know…you'd make a good cop with observational skills like that," teases Kate, watching him from across the table, her own mug cradled to her chest, as he finally sits back and gazes at her.

"Is…is that supposed to be funny?"

Kate shrugs. She wants _them_ back so desperately that she'll try anything. She wants _him_ back. "It's no worse a joke than most of yours," she challenges, eyeing him over the rim of her cheap, brown, crackle-glazed coffee mug.

For a second or two he thinks maybe this is the way to go, maybe this is just how they do it as a team, as a partnership, even as a…a couple. Ignore the massive elephant in the room, overlook the gaps in her story, forgive, forget, let it all go. But then he knows only too well – has a couple of decree absolute to prove it – what comes of not talking, not sharing, and not being honest.

* * *

"Tell me about after?" he asks after a beat of silence, spearing another piece of fruit.

"_After?_" frowns Kate, shaking her head to let him know that she doesn't understand what he's referring to.

"After I came to see you at the hospital that day. You promised to call, I left…what then?"

There's no bitterness or accusation in his voice now, just clipped resignation and a need to know. So Kate nods slowly, takes another sip of coffee and then sets the mug down on the tabletop between her hands.

"After you left I—" She pauses, fingering the long handle of her fork, her eyes lowered to the table. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Tell me," is all Castle can summon in reply. He's afraid of what he's going to hear – her thought process, her rational for abandoning him, for thinking she could turn her love for him off like a switch…like he's trying to do now. But he needs to hear it if he is to begin to heal and move on.

"Okay, well, I finally had the conversation with Josh later that evening."

"Conversation?"

"Yeah, he came to see me after his shift. And I told him…I told him that it was over," nods Kate, still toying with her fork. "He didn't seem surprised. Maybe by the timing, because I was still so weak after the surgery…but other than that…" she shrugs. "He didn't try to change my mind or argue that we had something worth fighting for. I think we'd both known for a long time…" confesses Kate, slowly raising her eyes to meet Castle's.

"Known?"

"That I wasn't in the same relationship as he was. That things weren't right between us. That…"

"_That?_" prompts Castle, when Kate dries up.

"That the connection you and I had would always get in the way no matter how much he tried to ignore it. He wasn't the jealous type. I'll give him that. But I…I wasn't really _present_ when I was with him in anything but the most rudimentary of ways."

"Meaning?"

"You really want me to spit it out?" asks Kate, darting her eyes over to the counter to make sure no one is listening in or can overhear them.

"Yeah. I think you _owe_ me, Beckett."

Kate sighs and grits her teeth. "I was physically there for what little time we managed to cobble together. But my mind was always somewhere else. He used to blame it on the job in the beginning, on never being able to shut off, always being on-call for the next DB, even when I wasn't the one on-call. That excuse wore pretty thin eventually…when he saw how _we_ were together."

"And how _was_ that? I'm…I'm not quite sure what was real and what wasn't anymore," Castle says, a little testily.

Kate drops her fork against her plate with a clatter. "Castle, _stop_. You're better than this," she fires back. "You _know_ how we were…_are_ together. It's easy, fun…the banter, the flirting, how in sync we always are with one another. It just flows. We have _never_ had to try. None of what you experienced when we were together wasn't real. None of it."

"Except your lies," interjects Castle, coolly.

"Except that I felt more for you that I let on. Is that such a bad thing? That I felt _more_ than I showed? That I was scared of losing what we already had? That I wanted to protect you? Castle, that's my _job_."

"_Yes!_ Of course it's a bad thing. Kate, you left me thinking—" He rakes his fingers through his hair in frustration, disturbing its usual neatness. "God, I don't even know what I was thinking anymore. All I know is that you left and I heard nothing from you for three months. I'm never getting that time back. But I need to understand what was going on with you back then if I'm to make any sense of where we are now."

* * *

Kate drops her head into her hands briefly, gazing with unseeing eyes down at her plate. When she looks up again, Castle is sitting quietly, staring at her with such longing on his face that she finds she can't deny him an explanation any longer.

And just like that, it's as if their anger is a fuel – spent - used up between them in the flash bang of their heated argument. Exhaustion and something that could be either defeat or acceptance settles quietly between them.

"I can tell you what you want to know, Castle. But I'm not sure how much it will help us now."

"I _need_ to know, Kate. If you've learned anything about me over the years it must be that. And if you're hoping for some kind of...of forgiveness from me..."

"That would be nice."

"Then you know what to do."

"The story?" she asks, her voice softening along with her expression. "You need the story?"

Castle nods and slowly begins to pick at his pie. "Please. Just tell me the story. That's all I'm asking."

_TBC..._


	7. Chapter 7 They Say Time Heals Everything

_A/N: Thank you again for your enthusiasm for this take on post-47 Seconds. I really appreciate your support and encouragement._

* * *

**Chapter 7: They Say Time Heals Everything**

_Previously…_

_Kate drops her head into her hands briefly, gazing with unseeing eyes down at her plate. When she looks up again, Castle is sitting quietly, staring at her with such longing on his face that she finds she can't deny him an explanation any longer._

_And just like that, it's as if their anger is a fuel – spent - used up between them in the flash bang of their heated argument. Exhaustion and something that could be either defeat or acceptance settles quietly between them._

_"I can tell you what you want to know, Castle. But I'm not sure how much it will help us now."_

_"I need to know, Kate. If you've learned anything about me over the years it must be that. And if you're hoping for some kind of...of forgiveness from me..."_

_"That would be nice."_

_"Then you know what to do."_

_"The story?" she asks, her voice softening along with her expression. "You need the story?"_

_Castle nods and slowly begins to pick at his pie. "Please. Just tell me the story. That's all I'm asking."_

* * *

"Okay. Okay. I can do that," she agrees.

"Thank you."

Kate waves the waitress over to top up their coffees. And it seems even this complete stranger can read the intensity of their conversation, since she remains hovering just on the edge of Kate's eye line for a minute or so before being given the all clear to approach. The second she departs the table Kate begins to recount her tale.

"As soon as I was strong enough to leave the hospital, my dad drove me away from the city. I was so—" She pauses to meet Castle's eye, her hands clasped around the worn mug for warmth. "Don't be angry when I say this, but it felt as if I was grief-stricken…only for myself."

Castle doesn't comment. He just listens in silence.

"I can't remember anything of the journey. My dad had gone up a few days before to get the cabin ready, air the place out. Bedding, towels, food, books…he even had to go to my apartment and pack my clothes and toiletries for me," she admits, looking ashamed somehow.

Kate stares down at the dark swirl of coffee in the mug before her, sorrow from that time etched into her features, and then she looks back up at Castle. "I haven't had to rely on anyone like that since I was a child, Castle. Can you imagine how that felt?"

"You could have come to me."

She shakes her head, definitively. "No. No, I couldn't. I was like an infant again. Weak, pretty helpless at first…I cried more in those first few weeks than I have since my mother died. _Me! _A homicide detective."

"Did you think I would _judge_ you?" asks Castle, his expression both wounded and horrified. "Kate, you'd been _shot_. You almost died."

Kate's features harden. She becomes resolute, reflecting her mood at that time. "No. I knew that if I saw you again I wouldn't be able to go through with it. I wouldn't be able to turn my back on you, walk away...let you go."

Her confession settles between them with an uncanny tangibility – a painful memory for her and a raw, fresh wound of an insight for him - a dark shape viewed equally by both of them.

When Castle finally looks up from studying the scratched surface in front of him, there is naked pain in his eyes. His hands are balled into fists beneath the table where Kate cannot see them. "Do you have any idea how angry that makes me? How _upset_?"

Kate nods slowly. "I'm starting to get an idea, yes. And I am _so_ sorry for hurting you."

"We could have done this together, Kate. I could have helped you," he insists, roaming her face with wary eyes.

* * *

They are crossing so many lines tonight, freely trading truths back and forth, and it feels liberating and terrifying at the same time. He almost expects her to shut down and flee at any second if he says the wrong thing. But a greater force is at play here, some bigger need, to get at the truth maybe or because his loss today has obliterated the normal rules and boundaries that exist between them. Maybe he simply no longer has anything to lose. Whatever it is, it keeps him forging on, pushing her for answers and himself to offer up the truth, even when it causes them both pain.

"You didn't have to go through a second of that by yourself. I would have helped you and expected nothing in return. You should have known that."

"Castle, you're not listening to me. I was trying to forget you. To get you out of my system." She pauses, shame coloring her face. "I was _running away_. I've never run away from anything in my life."

"So why run then? _Hmm?_" he pushes, anger making his pulse pound.

"Because things between us had been building and building. It was only a matter of time until we crossed a line. After that there was no way back. Not for me. Surely you can see that? First we had that fight at my apartment—"

"I said some unforgiveable things that night. I shouldn't have—"

"No," Kate waves her hand dismissively. "No, you were right. About everything. In fact, I think the reason I got so mad at you was because I was trying to push you harder. I wanted you to go further…to say more."

"Believe me, I wish I had."

Kate shrugs. "Water under the bridge. I sent you away, and then…Montgomery," she says, biting her lip and looking him in the eye. "I never thanked you properly for what you did that night."

"Kate, I had your back, that's all. That's what partners—"

"No, Rick, what you did went way beyond that. I'm pretty sure I would have died in that hangar right along with Roy if you hadn't been there looking out for me."

"Don't say that," hisses Castle, automatically stretching his fingers across the table, reaching for her hand.

One of the Uniforms from the booth near the door swaggers passed them right at that moment on his way to the bathroom, accompanied by the dull thud of heavy boots and the metallic clunk of a utility belt, and Castle quickly withdraws his hand to his own side of the table.

Kate clears her throat and sits back against the bench seating, putting a little more distance between them. She's not trying to reel him back in with some sob story in a bid for sympathy anyway. He has to hear the full, sometimes ugly truth, and then judge for himself, without any pressure or manipulation from her, how he feels now, all these months later.

* * *

"Anyway, I've kind of gone off course. You wanted the story."

Castle coughs and then hides his own awkwardness behind the rim of his coffee mug, the brief moment between them now over. "Yeah. That'd be good."

"My dad stayed with me for the first couple of weeks, helped me manage my pain meds, forced me to get out of bed, cooked for me, talked to me, he even read to me some nights when I couldn't sleep. I think he could see how depressed I was becoming and it worried him. I always buried my problems in my work in the past. My coping mechanism. Suddenly I didn't have that hole to hide in anymore."

Kate pauses, and her gaze drifts to the middle distance, her eyes losing focus as she remembers that painful time. "I thought about you almost every minute of the day," she tells him, her eyes filling with tears. She swipes one away from her cheek when it tumbles out, and then she carries on. "Everything I did back then, from breathing to eating to sleeping, caused me physical pain. But that pain was nothing compared to the pain of missing you. If you hear _anything_ I say tonight, Castle, hear that and believe it. I missed you so much," she tells him, sucking in a shaky breath to prevent herself from losing it in public.

"The feeling was mutual, if that helps any," Castle tells her, keeping his eyes glued to the table, because he knows that if he looks at her now he will only forgive her too quickly, and they both need to learn from this experience if they are to come out of it stronger and not repeat the same mistakes in future.

"I thought I was protecting you. I thought it made sense to sacrifice my own happiness if I could keep you safe by not letting you be around me anymore. They failed when they tried to kill me that day. So I was still a target. I couldn't have you near me and risk you getting caught in the crossfire if the worst were to happen. That is the God's honest truth, Castle. Only, I didn't count on a few things intervening to derail my plans."

"Such as?" he asks, tersely, fighting to control both his irrational anger that she took these choices away from him and his own deeply sorrowful memories of that time.

"My dad thought my plan to go up to the cabin was a good one. That's why he agreed to help me organize everything. He thought getting out of town, away from danger as he saw it, the fresh air, happy childhood memories even…he thought all of those things would help me heal. But I kept one small fact from him, and when he found out…let's just say he wasn't happy."

"What was that?"

"My plan to cut you out of my life."

"How _does_ one do that exactly?" asks Castle, tartly, barely missing a beat.

"If you're looking for tips, I have no idea," admits Kate, raising her hand to indicate herself and then her partner. "Because, clearly, I failed."

"So…what went wrong?"

"You're harder to forget than I anticipated," Kate admits, with a wry smile. "Feel free to gloat," she tells him, waiting for a trademark Castle response. When it doesn't come, she asks, "Too soon?"

"Yeah, just a little," replies Castle, with a brusque nod.

"I hadn't realized how much being apart from you would affect me…before you even get to my stupid plan to try to forget you altogether. We spent _so_ much time together…I hadn't realized how much. Everyday I was on duty at the Twelfth, every body drop, every crime scene, every interview, there you were by my side, bringing me coffee, making me laugh, helping in ways you will never understand. I missed you with a physical ache."

"I feel like I should apologize or something."

Kate almost laughs at her partner's dry remark.

* * *

"My dad saw through me pretty quickly. He kept asking if I'd called to let you know where I was and how I was doing, when you were coming up to visit. Then he started asking if _he_ could call and bring you up to speed. I finally had to explain my real motive for leaving town when I caught him with his cell phone in his hand, tapping in a number he had written on a scrap of paper that he kept folded in his wallet."

"Your dad had my number?"

Kate nods. "Yeah, turns out parents can be full of surprises just when you think you know everything about them. The only way I could stop him from calling you was to come clean."

"What did he say?"

"Oh, he was gentle at first. Patient. You've met him. He doesn't like to interfere."

"But that changed?"

"He could see how miserable I was making myself. He sat me down one afternoon and quietly told me that I was most likely deluding myself if I thought I could ignore my feelings for you. He pointed out how unfair I was being to you after everything you'd been through, how you'd tried to save me, stood by me after— He also pointed out how honorable you were, stepping aside to give Josh his place."

"Believe me, I didn't feel honorable at the time," admits Castle, bitterly remembering his fight with the surgeon in the hospital corridor.

"He said another thing that surprised me too. He told me that he knew how you felt about me from just watching you stand beside me at Roy's funeral, while I was giving the eulogy, right before…" Kate tails off and Castle nods to let her know that he understands exactly when she means. "He said you looked so proud. To be by my side. To be my partner."

"I am proud, Kate. Never forget that. You're an amazing woman."

Kate nods and manages to thank him, her voice barely rising above a whisper. Then she clears her throat. "When I told him what you said after I was shot…when I was lying on the grass, he looked at me funny. And when I asked him what was on his mind, he said 'you mean you didn't know? I thought everyone knew'," Kate adds, with a sorrowful chuckle.

Castle listens with rapt attention to her tell him these secrets about their time apart, and when she mentions how her father knew he was in love with her, he winces inwardly, for he has a few secrets of his own that he's been keeping close to his chest.

"And yet you chose to lie about remembering that day?" he reminds her, the accusatory words flying out of his mouth before he really thinks it through, especially in light of his own misdemeanors.

As usual, Kate's response is that of mind reader.

"Have you never lied for the right reasons? To protect someone you love?" asks Kate, looking Castle right in the eye.

It has taken her months of therapy to get to the point where she can talk to him like this - openly, honestly, directly - and she feels proud of herself for finally getting there.

* * *

Castle clears his throat and begins tapping his fork on the side of his plate, sounding out a nervous rhythm. "Actually, now might be a good time to tell you that…that the first time I met your dad wasn't at Roy's funeral."

Kate looks up from her own plate. "_Oh?_"

"Yeah, your dad came to see me at the loft one night," he confesses, so dry-mouthed by the end of this sentence that he has to take a sip of coffee to get his tongue working again.

Kate looks a little startled by this sudden confession, but she tries to cover her shock as best she can. _She_ is the one in the dock here tonight for her own wrongdoing. She will not capitalize on some minor infringement Castle may have made to take the heat off herself.

"When was this?" she asks, trying to mask her rampant curiosity, imagining it was probably while she was sequestered away in the woods of Upstate New York, licking her wounds, all by herself.

"The night before I came to see you at your apartment to ask you to walk away from your mother's case."

Silence. Silence stretching out without limit of time.

"Kate? Please say something?"

"_That_ was my dad's idea?" asks Kate, hoarsely, as if she's been winded.

"Well, no, it—"

"_Was it_ or wasn't it, Castle?" she asks, sharply.

Castle sighs and runs a hand through his hair in discomfort, feeling as if he's telling tales on Jim Beckett. "Look. He asked me to talk to you. He wanted to know how dangerous were these men that you were going after."

"What did you tell him?"

"I couldn't lie, Beckett. He's your father."

"How cosy. The two of you cooking up plans together behind my back."

Castle slaps his hand flat on the tabletop, making the sugar bowl jump between them. "No. No, Kate you do _not_ get to act like the wounded party here. We both wanted to keep you safe. He had already lost his wife. He didn't want to lose you too. And for some reason, he thought _I_ was the only one you would listen to. Fat lot of good I turned out to be," Castle adds bitterly, immediately looking away from their table and away from Kate.

* * *

Kate lets go of a long, slow breath, deciding after a moment's clear thinking that fighting over this minor point that belongs in the past really isn't going to help them. Their motives came from a place of caring, just as hers did.

"Hey," she says, kicking his foot under the table to get his attention. "Don't blame yourself. I can be too stubborn for my own good sometimes," she admits, with trademark understatement.

"You don't say," remarks Castle, just a hint of humor coming through in the sarcastic remark.

"Now at least I know where he got your number."

"So…am I forgiven?"

"Castle, there's nothing to forgive. What you tried to do for me… Don't think I don't know how hard that was for you. Asking me to walk away, to turn my back on my mom's case. I'll deal with my dad later," she adds, with a smile.

"So, you said there were a few things that derailed your plans. Aside from Jim Beckett being a member of the Rick Castle Fan Club," he says, waiting for a smile from Kate before he goes on. She duly delivers, though there is surprise mixed in there too; surprise at his sudden levity, he supposes. "Can I ask what else got in the way?"

"You look like you're almost starting to enjoy yourself," she observes, sitting back and crossing her arms.

"I wouldn't go that far. Just remind me to thank your dad sometime."

"Do you have something to thank him for?" fishes Kate, holding her breath for his answer, her heart suddenly racing with unearned optimism.

"Let's just carry on with the story, shall we, and then I'll let you know."

"You drive a hard bargain, Mr Castle."

"I had a good teacher, Detective."

"Touché."

* * *

Kate sips her coffee and finishes the rest of her pie before continuing. It's getting late and she is exhausted, but she feels as if they might finally be getting somewhere, traces of the old them surfacing now and again. She uses this incentive to find new energy to carry on.

"So…yeah, the story. I...I stayed on at the cabin by myself after dad came back to the city for work."

"I hate to think of you up there all alone."

"I was perfectly safe. I had my gun."

"I know you can take care of yourself, Kate. I don't just mean your safety."

"You mean was I lonely?"

Castle nods.

"Trying to forget the one thing that you can't stop thinking about gets to be exhausting. Honestly, I was too tired to be lonely. I tried to keep busy to prevent myself from thinking about all the things I was missing back home…my apartment, the boys, Lanie, my job…_you_. I went for walks, eventually I could do some light exercise, I slept and I read…a lot."

Castle lifts his eyebrows on hearing that she turned to books to help her escape her loneliness, obviously interested to hear what she was reading. Kate doesn't give him an immediate answer though.

"That actually brings me back to one of the things that derailed my plan. I gave my dad a list of the books I wanted him to take to the cabin for me before we left…books I'd bought a long time ago and never got round to reading. I'm afraid I kept all of yours off that list, Castle. I'm sure you can figure out why by now."

"You'd resigned from the Rick Castle Fan Club. I get it."

Kate smiles, circling the rim of her mug with her fingertip, before she slowly looks up at her partner. "Yeah. Only…turns out I have a lifetime membership."

Castle tips his head to one side, frowning in puzzlement at her comment.

"I was having my mail redirected from home. One day the mailman showed up with a parcel. I thought maybe my dad had sent me something to keep me amused. Turns out it was my pre-ordered copy of _'Heat Rises'_. Hot off the press."

"_Oh._" Castle covers his mouth with his hand. He's secretly delighted that she was eager enough to pre-order a copy, but he manages not to comment.

"Yeah. I—I must have sat there on the porch swing for an hour just _staring_ at your picture on the back of the book until my eyes went blurry," confesses Kate. "I…I remember reaching down to touch your face, only—" She breaks off when tears clog her throat and she can't continue speaking without taking a break.

"We…uh…we can do this someplace more private if you'd like. I don't want to put you through this in—"

Kate clears her throat and squares her shoulders. "No. No, I'll be fine. You deserve to hear the truth, Castle. That's the least I can do."

"Okay, if you're sure?"

"Yeah. I am," she assures him, downing the last of her coffee. "I put the book back in its wrapping and then I buried it at the bottom of a drawer. I lasted maybe a day before I jogged back from the lake to dig it out and begin reading. Castle, the dedication…"

_\- To Captain Roy Montgomery, NYPD. He made a stand and taught me all I need to know about bravery and character. - _

"There was nothing I wrote in there that wasn't true. He was a good man who made some mistakes. Which of us can say we haven't made mistakes, Beckett? He spent a long time atoning for his…gave his life in the end."

"Yeah, I agree. It just…it brought it all back, you know? That night at my apartment, all the things I should have said, the way you put your life on the line for me again and again like it was nothing, your belief in me, your loyalty...and all the other little things. You make it _impossible_ not to love you. That book only reminded me of that. You were brave and you had character when I first met you. You might have annoyed the hell out of me in the beginning, but you were never not a good man, Rick. I realized that day how screwed up I'd become."

"How long into your stay was this?"

"About six weeks."

"And you still couldn't pick up the phone or send me a text?"

"It would have been the right thing to do, I don't doubt that now. And, Castle, if I could take back some of my choices, I would. But in my own twisted way I was trying to get better for you. Can you see that?" she asks gently.

She's telling him she still loves him now, and that's so distracting. It's messing with his head. He finds that he has nothing to say.

* * *

"My dad came to visit that weekend. He found your book lying open on the coffee table and he asked me about it. I felt so ashamed when I tried to explain to him again what I had been thinking when I ran away from New York and cut you out of my life."

"You were scared…wounded," he says, standing up for her for the first time.

"That's no excuse. I hurt the most important person in my life. And like you said, we can never get that time back."

"You were trying to keep me and my family safe, Kate. I can see that now…more than I did before."

"No." She shakes her head. "I think you've been drinking Katie's Kool Aid, Castle. I listened to my dad talking about my mom that weekend, about the time they had together, every day precious, no matter the pain he had to go through when he lost her. He said he wouldn't change a thing if meant sharing all those years together and being able to have me. To make a family. I felt like such a coward for running away from that possibility when I listened to him talk about my mom. Losing her turned him into an alcoholic, and he _still_ cherishes every memory. The pain that comes from remembering the good times is preferable to having no good times to remember. That was his bottom line."

"Sounds like I owe your dad more than I thought."

"My dad helped a lot, yes. But you helped too, Castle. In your own words."

Castle frowns. "I don't understand."

"Your book. _Heat Rises_. It broke down my resolve, made me face the truth I'd been hiding from. I realized that if I still missed you so much after all those weeks apart, then maybe I could protect you too. Turns out I couldn't imagine my life without you in it, Castle, no matter how hard I tried. We packed up and left for the city the next day."

"And then you showed up my book signing?"

"No. Not right away. That came later."

* * *

Castle leans forward, intrigued.

"My first night back in the city I decided to take a walk in my neighborhood to clear my head. I knew that you would probably be mad at me and I was trying to work up to seeing you, trying to figure out what to say... Anyway, I was walking past an alley and all of a sudden there was this really loud bang, like a gunshot."

Kate shakes her head and then covers her face with her hands.

"What happened?"

"Someone had slammed a dumpster lid behind a restaurant, I think. Next thing I knew I was lying flat on the ground with my face in the dirt and my hands on top my head."

"PTSD?" asks Castle, his blue eyes suddenly shaded with concern.

Kate nods. "That was about a month before the book signing. I realized I had a hell of a lot of work to put in before I was ready to protect you or anyone else."

"So, what did you do then?"

"Next day I found a therapist through the department. Started seeing him three times a week. Everywhere I went, every bus shelter, every bookstore window seemed to have your face in it. I even caught you giving an interview on the Today Show with Ann Curry* one morning."

"I'm sorry if me and my face haunted you, Beckett."

"Don't you mean your ruggedly handsome face?" asks Kate, falling back on an old joke.

"I think I was...less than handsome at that time. Probably I was the haunted one. So…therapy helped?" he asks, switching the subject away from his own misery, lest he sound self-pitying.

"Uh…yeah. Not at first. I found it hard to open up in the beginning. I'd shut myself away Upstate all those weeks, tried to deny every feeling I had. Just getting used to being back in the city again was hard. There was so much noise, too many people, even the smells were overwhelming at first. But gradually, I started to talk, and I learned more about my own feelings, how being shot had affected me, about my reaction to my mother's death, the wall I'd built up to protect myself from feeling that pain. It may look so easy saying all of these things to you now – telling you how I feel about you – but it wasn't back then. I was a jumbled mess. My thoughts…some days all I wanted to do was sleep. Dr. Burke helped me out of that, so that by the time I came to see you I was better. Not fixed as you know, but better."

"Did you ever think about coming clean…about lying, I mean? After you felt stronger?"

"All the time. But then things seemed so good between us. I know it's no excuse, but I didn't want to rock the boat. I was afraid of how you might react and I hoped that maybe we could just get to a place in our relationship where it wouldn't matter anymore because you'd know how I felt about you. Does that make sense?"

Castle nods, though in truth he is still mulling everything over, trying to figure out how he feels about this deluge of information. "And today?"

"Today I got sloppy…and angry. But it's like you said, if the bombing proves anything, it's that bad things can happen no matter what you do. Nobody's tomorrow is guaranteed. I should have acted a long time ago, told you the truth, and maybe we wouldn't be sitting here now."

"Well, for what it's worth, I appreciate you being so honest with me tonight."

Kate bobs her head in thanks. "You're welcome. It's long overdue."

* * *

Castle sinks back against his seat, and then he stretches his arms high above his head, interlinking his hands and turning his palms towards the ceiling, reaching up to his full height until his muscles tremble, unable to stifle the yawn that accompanies this tired gesture.

Eventually, he looks around the near empty coffee shop, and then he turns back to face his waiting partner. "So…what happens now?" he asks, with a lift of his eyebrows.

Kate offers him a tender smile and a gentle shrug. "That's really up to you."

_TBC..._

* * *

_Note: *Ann Curry was still on the regular team of the Today Show back at the beginning of S4 when Kate refers to seeing Castle being interviewed about Heat Rises._


	8. Chapter 8 - But I'm Still Waiting

_A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing the last chapter. I hope everyone is having a good week._

* * *

**Chapter 8: But I'm Still Waiting**

_Previously…_

_"Did you ever think about coming clean…about lying, I mean? After you felt stronger?"_

_"All the time. But then things seemed so good between us. I know it's no excuse, but I didn't want to rock the boat. I was afraid of how you might react and I hoped that maybe we could just get to a place in our relationship where it wouldn't matter anymore because you'd know how I felt about you. Does that make sense?"_

_Castle nods, though in truth he is still mulling everything over, trying to figure out how he feels about this deluge of information. "And today?"_

_"Today I got sloppy…and angry. But it's like you said, if the bombing proves anything, it's that bad things can happen no matter what you do. Nobody's tomorrow is guaranteed. I should have acted a long time ago, told you the truth, and maybe we wouldn't be sitting here now."_

_"Well, for what it's worth, I appreciate you being so honest with me tonight."_

_Kate bobs her head in thanks. "You're welcome. It's long overdue."_

_Castle sinks back against his seat, and then he stretches his arms high above his head, interlinking his hands and turning his palms towards the ceiling, reaching up to his full height until his muscles tremble and his whole body shakes, unable to stifle the yawn that accompanies this tired gesture._

_Eventually, he relaxes again, looking around the near empty coffee shop, before turning back to face his waiting partner. "So…what happens now?" he asks, with a lift of his eyebrows._

_Kate offers him a tender smile and a gentle shrug. "That's really up to you."_

* * *

Castle taps the tabletop with the tips of his fingers relentlessly, his thumbs hanging free of the edge. When the drumming and the silence becomes too much, Kate waves to the waitress behind the coffee bar, signaling for the check.

Castle finally looks up when he hears Kate rooting around in her purse for her wallet, summoned back to the present by the tinkle of coins and the rustle of notes.

"It's getting late, we should probably—"

"Yeah," nods Castle, suddenly bone weary with the weight of the emotional fallout released by a single, overheard conversation. "Here, let me," he says, diving into his back pocket for his own wallet.

"Save your money, Castle. I've got this one," insists Kate, holding up her hand to bat his cash away if he tries to press it upon her.

"Thanks," he says, backing down this time.

"I think I owe you a lot more than a slice of pie and a cup of coffee."

"Maybe. But start trying to repay that debt…that is an _awful_ lot of coffee. Could take a while," he says, glancing up to meet her startled look with a twinge of a smile.

"Does that mean…?" she asks, with a hopeful list to her voice.

Castle edges out of the booth and then stands, his back protesting all the while, but he doesn't directly answer her question. "I'd say, until tomorrow, Detective, but I do believe you have the day off."

Kate nods as they walk out of the coffee shop together. The cops are long gone - back behind the wheel of their squad car or out on foot patrol. Only a couple of teenagers remain, hunched over a table in the window, staring starry-eyed at one another as they share a milkshake through two candy-striped straws.

"Gates insisted. So…I guess I now have a longer than expected weekend."

* * *

Once out on the street, they pause, facing one another, the weight of everything said and unsaid swirling between them like a vortex.

Kate feels as if she has been stripped raw tonight. She can feel every brush of her clothing against her skin: the underwiring of her bra pressing into her ribcage with every breath, the fine wool of her plum-colored sweater caressing her back and arms beneath her coat, the fabric of her grey pants moving against her legs with every step; all of her old defenses dissolved away in an effort to let Castle see her as she truly is. But this exposition has left her vulnerable, and though her tale has now come to a natural conclusion, her partner has yet to pick up the loose ends and re-knot them to put her back together again. He has even failed to ask any further questions of his own, behavior so unlike him that it puzzles Kate. It's almost as if they have just run out of steam and are parting now because neither of them knows what else to do.

"Right. So…see you Monday?" Castle asks, offering her his hand with what Kate now considers to be stiff formality.

She is about to take his proffered hand through force of habit; it is the polite thing to do. But…_then what_, she wonders. Does she let him go home alone to wallow, before they simply slip back into their old routine and their old, familiar roles on Monday? She may not know what happens next, but she does know one thing - they can't keep living in this strange land of subtextual conversation and stolen, longing-filled glances they have constructed for themselves. Not now that all her cards have been laid on the table.

"_Actually_," she says, letting her hand fall back to her side, while Castle's remains at right-angles between them, "do you fancy maybe doing something this weekend?"

She feels her cheeks flood with color at this simple request, and she has to bite her lip to prevent herself from withdrawing the offer instantly, jumping into the back of the nearest cab to escape. She finds herself grateful for the concealing shroud of darkness, thanks to the lack of direct street lighting where they stand. Because despite all that they have shared tonight, she is still terrible at asking him for anything personal.

When Castle seems to be taking his time to mull over her offer, she rapidly becomes unable to prevent herself from intervening. "I…I mean you probably already have plans, but if—"

"Could we maybe talk tomorrow? Would you mind?" asks Castle, rubbing the back of his neck again, revealing his own heightened level of discomfort.

Kate instantly begins to back away. "Sure. Whatever you need. It doesn't have to be tomorrow. Take a couple of days…the whole weekend. I'll see you Monday though?" she asks, unable to leave without at least knowing that – that he will be back by her side at the precinct at the very least.

"Oh, yeah. Sure. And Kate, I hope you understand? Tonight was…"

"A lot, I know," agrees Kate, feeling her toes curl at the awkwardness of the moment; as if the window they had managed to shore open is in the process of slamming shut. "Honestly, take your time. You know where I am if… Right, well, I see a cab. I'll just—" she says, raising her hand to hail the fastest route out of here.

* * *

She's over by the curb, her teeth digging into her lip, her eyes raised in a final burst of hope towards his. "Well, g'night," she whispers, offering up a parting wave.

"Yeah, safe home," nods Castle, and for a second she thinks this is how it will end. She cracked open her heart to him, displayed all that she is – good, bad and everything in between – and it simply wasn't enough. Or worse, her offering of honesty came too late and he has simply inoculated his heart against her and—

Castle almost knocks her off her feet with a hug that comes out of nowhere. One minute she is talking herself off the ledge and the next second he is surrounding her, strong arms banded around her body crushing her to his chest.

Her brain is overwhelmed trying to catch up, to live in the moment, to experience this offering to the fullest before he withdraws once more. Before that window really does slam shut. So she inhales and hangs on, absorbing every nuance of his scent, taking it apart layer by layer and then putting it back together again, relishing the strength of his grip, memorizing the sensation of his cheek briefly sliding over hers until it comes to rest against her hair, the hardness of his thigh muscles nudging against hers, his fingers pressing either side of her spine…

And then he is gone.

Just a whispered thank you, and, in the blink of an eye, gone, leaving her standing startled and statue-like by the curb until the cabdriver yells at her, honking his horn in impatience. Finally she comes to enough to remember where she is - staring at Richard Castle's receding back as he strolls off down the street, his shoulders slightly hunched, the glow from his cell phone illuminating his chin and cheeks an eerie blue, as he holds it in his hand to check the time or make a call.

Going. Going. Gone.

* * *

Castle is sitting in his study nursing a Scotch when Martha comes floating in between the bookcase walls on a cloud of Bond 9's _Fire Island_ and a hazy waft of peacock blue chiffon, instantly scenting this masculine space with top notes of honey, sensual tuberose and patchouli.

"How many of those have you had?" she drawls, eyeing her son with a mother's special kind of sympathy.

"Not nearly enough. Care to join me?" asks Castle, holding up the heavy-bottomed crystal tumbler. He tilts the glass from side to side so that the honey-golden liquid rolls around languidly, like a drunk man attempting to stand in a rowing boat, coating the sides and gilding Castle's fingers a jaundiced, flaxen hue.

"I take it your mercy mission didn't end well?" his mother observes, archly.

Castle pours his mother a Scotch and hands it to her, asking distractedly, "Mercy mission?"

"You can't have forgotten that valiant little speech you gave me already? How this isn't about _her_ anymore. This is about the victims, about doing something real…something that matters. Ring any bells?"

Castle's sinks back down into the leather chair behind his desk with a disgusted sigh and a flash of sarcasm. "Don't you just love it when someone quotes _you_ back to _you_?"

"Darling, I'm an actress. Kind of goes with the territory," Martha points out loftily, perching on the arm of the sofa that nestles beneath one of the apartment's great, East-facing windows with all the drama and aplomb worthy of an actress of her pretentions.

"Very funny, mother."

Martha simply takes a swig of Scotch and raises the glass to salute her son.

"What's got you so riled up anyway? That switch not as easy to flip as you thought? And where have you been all night? Not out drinking your sorrows away, I hope?"

Castle keeps his eyes trained on his glass. "No. I've been with Beckett, actually."

Martha's eyes widen in surprise, her voice filling with unconcealed curiosity. "_Oh?_"

"Yeah. Turns out I'm better at confronting issues than I thought."

Martha leans forward, her interest clearly piqued. "Does that mean you went back to talk to her about what you overheard?"

Castle nods, the only sound the sharp crack of an ice cube expanding in his glass.

"Good for you, darling," she congratulates him. "Well, that's progress. Right?"

Castle nods again, downing the rest of his drink and then reaching for the bottle to pour himself a second one.

"So what did she have to say for herself?"

Castle pauses a second to consider the question – how to sum up three or four hours of deeply private conversation in a sentence or two? "She said that she lied and then left town to protect me and my family."

"And…do you believe her?"

* * *

Castle takes another minute to generate a response, moving his wrist in a circular motion to keep the liquid touring the sides of his glass, as if it will set like molten lava gone cold without the liquefying properties of perpetual motion. As if _he_ will become trapped forever in the amber of his own misery, if he himself fails to keep moving in some small way.

"She was pretty convincing. I have to give her that. And pretty cut up, if I take her story at face value."

"Leaving the city for all those weeks to go and live in a cabin in the woods does sounds pretty selfless, darling," remarks Martha, the whole idea of nature and roughing it so abhorrent to her that she'd rather die than endure a night without air conditioning and wall-to-wall carpeting. "So what brought her back?"

"Turns out she's not quite as selfless as she thought," says Castle, dryly, tipping his head back to swallow another burning mouthful of whisky.

"In other words, she missed you?" translates Martha, her expression softening into a smile of sympathy for her son's deep hurt.

"Yeah…that."

Martha sighs, her head tilted to one side as she watches her son struggle. "I think I prefer the way Detective Beckett described it."

"She said that she is so like her mom. She felt as if she was on this unavoidable path to destruction. She didn't want me near her when the inevitable happened."

"Richard, I have to say that sounds fair. What you went through at Captain Montgomery's funeral…how close you came. Darling, it sounds as if she did you a favor."

"Then why doesn't it feel like it, _hmm_?" he asks, with an uncharacteristic flash of anger. "When I think back to that time…" he shakes his head, ruefully. "Mother, I could have _helped_ her."

"Some people just aren't good at asking for help, and if we are to believe what she told you, helping her would only have put you in more danger, Richard."

Castle sighs, rubbing his eyes with his hand. "I don't know what to believe. She sounded sincere, distraught even, about the time she spent away. When she came back to the city, that's when her PTSD kicked in and she started going for therapy."

"She didn't feel she could tell you that at the time?"

"Somehow I don't think sharing a weakness is Beckett's strong suit."

Martha seems to mull this over for a second before asking anything further. "And did she explain why she didn't come clean and tell you the truth once you two got close again and started working together?"

"She thought we were doing okay…better than okay, I think. Things were so good between us that she didn't want to rock the boat."

Martha's voice softens, because she can hear in that explanation the love the detective clearly has for her son. "I can understand that."

"Mother, I told her I loved her and _nothing_ changed for us. We're still just partners."

"Maybe she thought it was safer that way?"

"For whom? _Kate?_ Have you been talking to her? Because I swear—"

"Darling, I am not saying that I condone anything Beckett did. I'm just trying to see things from her point of view in order to help you understand her motivation," placates Martha, placing down her glass and stepping forward to reach out and touch her son.

* * *

Martha draws Castle into a brief hug and then she releases him, stroking her hand over his cheek with great tenderness. "How did you leave things tonight?"

Castle shrugs. "I don't need to be back at the precinct until Monday."

"So, _what?_ You're just going to wallow in the past and drown your sorrows for the next couple of days? Richard, what good is that going to do either of you?"

Castle sighs and shakes his head, frustrated at himself. "I know that. I do. And she did ask if I wanted to do something with her this weekend…"

"So? What are you waiting for? _Call her!_ Take her out to dinner. Girls love to be wined and dined, believe me."

"She was being so honest, mother. You should have seen her...heart on her sleeve for once. So I told her about her dad coming to see me, how he asked me to get her to stop looking into her mother's case."

"That's good. The fewer secrets you have between you the better."

"Agreed. Only there's one major secret just sitting right here, waiting to blow up in my face," he says, turning his laptop around until the screen is facing his mother.

"You didn't tell her about your mysterious Mr. Smith? Oh, darling, how could you leave that out?" groans Martha, her expression contorted by genuine distress.

"She said that I made it impossible for her not to love me. She said that she missed me everyday that she was away. I couldn't risk telling her about Smith and have her shut down on me again."

"Oh, darling, the real question is can you risk _not_ telling her? If you learned anything from Beckett's mistake today it's that secrets have a way of coming out, no matter how hard we try to keep them hidden. _Tell her_. If she loves you as much as she says she does, then she'll understand that you were only trying to protect her in the same way that she tried to protect you."

* * *

Kate lies back in bed with her robe pulled tightly around her. A book lies discarded in her lap, a cup of chamomile tea cooling on the nightstand. The anticlimax after tonight is crushing; like the drop in your stomach when you ride a rollercoaster, only without the laughter and the rush of adrenalin, and infinitely longer lasting.

She reaches for her cell phone, checking the screen for the umpteenth time – still no missed calls and no new texts. She sighs, her heart heavy with the weight of the unknown.

"Hey, dad," she says, smiling into the phone, trying to elevate her mood for her father. "Yeah, just thought I'd give you a call. Check you're still on for brunch on Sunday."

"Sure am. Is this gonna be the weekend Rick finally deigns to join us?" teases her dad, as he's been doing ever since she described finding her partner alive in the bank vault of the _New Amsterdam Bank &amp; Trust_ after the robbers blew themselves up, and he saw the truth about the closeness of their partnership written all over his daughter's face.

"_Dad_," tuts Kate, shaking her head, forgetting that her father cannot see her gesture. "No, he…uh…he's busy with Alexis this weekend," she lies, biting her lip in admonition.

"You still haven't worked up the courage to ask him, have you, Katie?" laughs her dad, amused by how brave his daughter can be, except when it comes to this - telling her partner of four years how she really feels about him.

"Shut up," grouses Kate, hating that her father is right.

"Okay, I'll leave it be…for now. But you need to talk to the guy before you both get too old to do anything about it, you hear me?"

"That sounds like something Martha would say," complains Kate, with a roll of her eyes.

"Insult me all you like, Katie. But I'm gonna keep at it until you give in and tell him how you feel about him."

* * *

Kate covers her face with her free hand and cringes at what she knows is coming. "I did," she finally admits, with a wince.

She can almost hear her dad do a double-take over the line. "_Excuse me?_"

"I said, I did it. I told him everything."

"And what did he say?"

"That's just it. Rick Castle is a talker. Even _you_ know that. And he really didn't say much of anything."

"Maybe he's still processing. What you tried to do for him, Katie…it is a lot to take in."

"Yeah, well, I don't think he was as impressed by my efforts, so much as angry that I shut him out."

"Oh, Katie," sighs her dad. "You don't need me to tell you what I thought of your plan. Selfless though it was."

"I know, dad. It wasn't my smartest idea ever."

"Listen to me. Take it from your old dad, Rick Castle loves you. Now whether he takes a day or a week, a month or—"

"Dad, please stop talking. You're making me nervous," implores Kate, burying her head in her knees.

"He'll come around. That's all I'm trying to say. Now, I'll see you Sunday at the usual place. You get some rest. Oh, and Katie?"

"Yes, dad?"

"I'm proud of you."

* * *

Kate sleeps fitfully, strange dreams and the alternating sensation of feeling too warm and then too cold when she throws the covers off, tormenting her until morning. When her bed is no longer a pleasurable place to be and even a light doze seems far beyond her reach, she gets up.

Showering and dressing early for a Saturday, she dons a simple white shirt, soft, worn, light blue jeans, and flat, gold sandals with crystals embellishing the top of each foot. She lets her hair dry naturally, teasing it through with her fingers to ease out some of the tighter curls. A flash of mascara, a dusting of blush and a slick of pale lip gloss and she is ready to go, looking cool, relaxed and casual, in sharp contrast to her weekday attire. She decides that she will enjoy the day, put Castle out of her mind. She's having lunch with Lanie at one, but first she heads for the flower market in Union Square to stock up on fresh blooms for her apartment in an effort to cheer herself up.

The conversation she had with Castle last night was long overdue. She freely acknowledges that to herself, as she would to him again, if he were here. But in all the versions she has practiced and in all the scenarios she envisioned, two things are missing – firstly, that she would feel lighter with all her of secrets revealed, and secondly, that Castle would have understood or at least asked more questions of her before they parted ways. His silence is out of character, disturbing and distracting all at once.

So it is with these puzzling thoughts preoccupying her mind that she skirts the edges of Union Square's Greenmarket, unwilling to throw herself into the sharp-elbowed throng of eager Saturday morning shoppers for once. The high-strung mother's with their thousand dollar strollers and voices that could shatter glass; the well-heeled old ladies with their tiny pooches and even tinier appetites; the grungy students with their thrift store clothes, picking mysterious woodland mushrooms by hand, shelling out for chemical-free, handmade soap and buying organic quinoa by the kilo despite struggling to find the rent each month; and the tourists who look as if they have never seen a market before, their cameras and iPhones trained on displays of everyday fresh produce as though it were an exotic spice market in Marrakesh. All of New York life is here, and today, it feels kind of overwhelming.

* * *

Eventually, Kate spots a flower seller with an abundance of long-stemmed sunflowers over the heads of most of the throng; their sunny, upturned faces instantly making her feel a little happier, a little lighter, however brief their consolation.

"I'll take half a dozen, please," she tells the stallholder, paying his teenage daughter while the man with weathered hands wraps her purchases in a length of brown paper and secures it with copious amounts of Scotch tape.

The sun warms her skin as she crosses the square en route to the Blue Water Grill: a stylish seafood restaurant located on the western edge of the square at the corner of East 16th Street.

When she makes her way inside, the throng of busy people - the buzz of brunches finishing and the sound of lunches just getting underway - is what greets her; a wall of happy, well-oiled sound. She gives her name and is immediately escorted to her table by a tall, elegant, young hostess, who, were life fairer, would be on Broadway or HBO by now, making her dreams come true, instead of making reservations for overweight businessmen with fat expense accounts.

This thing with Castle - his continued silence and the uncertainty of it all - is making her anxious and jumpy, maybe even a little cross. She makes a mental note to work on her mood, _after_ she works on a cocktail, as she drifts along behind the model-come-reservationist to a prime, linen-draped, four-top situated in a corner by the window.

The girl smiles at her - a hollow, dead-eyed, fabrication of a smile - more as an afterthought, thinks Kate, since she seems infinitely more interested in the gentleman sitting bedecked in pale blue cashmere and a dark navy blazer that most likely cost more than a month's salary for both of them.

"You—you're not Lanie," she remarks, her comment filled with such obvious, inbuilt redundancy that it has her cringing on the inside, as the hostess vanishes into thin air, leaving her standing stock-still and staring by the table, ridiculously armed with a bouquet of giant, cheery-looking sunflowers to boot.

_TBC..._


	9. Chapter 9 - I've Paid A Price

_A/N: *sings* "An angsting we will go, an angsting we will go, ee aye ma daddio, an angsting we will go." ;)_

* * *

**Chapter 9: I've Paid A Price**

_Previously…_

_The sun warms her skin as she crosses the square en route to the Blue Water Grill: a stylish seafood restaurant located on the western edge of the square at the corner of East 16th Street._

_When she makes her way inside, the throng of busy people - the buzz of brunches finishing and the sound of lunches just getting underway - is what greets her; a wall of happy, well-oiled sound. She gives her name and is immediately escorted to her table by a tall, elegant, young hostess, who, were life fairer, would be on Broadway or HBO by now, making her dreams come true, instead of making reservations for overweight businessmen with fat expense accounts._

_This thing with Castle - his continued silence and the uncertainty of it all - is making her anxious and jumpy, maybe even a little cross. She makes a mental note to work on her mood, after she works on a cocktail, as she drifts along behind the model-come-reservationist to a prime, linen-draped, four-top situated in a corner by the window._

_The girl smiles at her - a hollow, dead-eyed, fabrication of a smile - more as an afterthought, thinks Kate, since she seems infinitely more interested in the gentleman sitting bedecked in pale blue cashmere and a dark navy blazer that most likely cost more than a month's salary for both of them._

_"You—you're not Lanie," she remarks, her comment filled with such obvious, inbuilt redundancy that it has her cringing on the inside, as the hostess vanishes into thin air, leaving her standing stock-still and staring by the table, ridiculously armed with a bouquet of giant, cheery-looking sunflowers to boot._

* * *

"Congratulations! You get an '_A'_ for observation, Detective."

Kate bites her lip, the sunflowers suddenly feeling bulky and awkward in her arms, their thick, green stems digging into the bones of her wrist.

"Are those for me?" asks the writer, indicating the enormous blooms with their giant, smiley faces.

"Castle, what are you doing here?"

Castle is still in the process of hastily removing his napkin from his lap, and he drops it onto the table in a messy heap, immediately standing out of courtesy and as a sign of good manners, or perhaps because he plans to leave. Kate isn't quite sure.

"You want me to go? I can go? I just thought…" He rubs the back of his neck.

"What?"

"Well…you said if I wanted to do something this weekend," he shrugs. "I thought maybe we could start with lunch…take it from there?" he suggests, his cocky opener falling away to reveal a depth of uncertainty that she finds…endearing.

"I assumed you call first. And where's Lanie?" asks Kate, looking around the large, packed dining room as if she expects her friend to be hiding behind a pillar or peering at them from between some palm fronds.

"Lanie generously offered to take a rain check on lunch and step aside for the greater good," Castle informs Kate, studying her face all the while for her reaction to this piece of news.

"The greater good?" smirks Kate.

"_Oh_…just so long as you call her later and tell her all the juicy details. I was supposed to remember to tell you that part," he says, comically slapping his own forehead. "She kind of insisted."

Kate laughs, her cheeks pinking up at her friend's predictably saucy demand for girl talk. "That sounds like Lanie alright."

"Actually, it was more like she threatened," admits Castle, with a grimace. "I just didn't want to sound—"

"Scared? Oh, believe me, Castle, you would _not_ be the first guy to be scared of Lanie Parish."

* * *

Things seem to be going well, so Castle steps around the table and pulls Kate's chair out for her, holding out his hand to indicate for her to sit. "Join me?" he asks hopefully, looking half-boyish and half-sheepish for a second. "Please?"

Kate gives in and sits, the large bouquet of flowers now trapped between the table and her body. "Technically, it's actually _you_ who are joining _me_, since I was the one who made the res—"

"Always have to have the last word, Detective," grins Castle, retaking his seat, while engaging in a good deal of head shaking.

"Depends," counters Kate, one eyebrow arched.

"On what exactly?"

"On why you're really here."

"Right."

Castle nods thoughtfully in response to her challenge. He steeples his fingers on top of the white linen tablecloth and stares down at his joined hands for a second or two, gathering his thoughts.

Kate lowers her voice and leans across the table to prompt him. "Castle, I _bared_ my soul to you the other night and then…_nothing_. No call, no text…just…_nothing_. Was that my punishment? Were you teaching me a lesson, making a point about what you went through when I left town for three months? Is that what this is all—"

"I prefer the more personal touch," he interrupts, coolly, clearly and calmly.

Kate sits back in her seat, chastened. She blinks, reaching for the water glass. "Is that so?"

"Mmm-hmm," he hums, reaching for her hand across the table.

He toys with her fingers briefly, slotting his own thicker digits in between her slender ones. Kate feels jolts of electricity shooting up her arm at this barest and most innocent of touches, and then he withdraws again to his own side of the table, leaving her a throbbing, disconcerted mess.

* * *

She takes another sip of water to moisten her parched throat, following it up with a few cleansing breaths, before she risks speaking again.

"Castle, are you flirting with me? I mean…just to be clear," she asks, her cheeks far too warm for it not to show on her face.

"Clear is good. Honest is good," states the writer, bluest of blue eyes roaming over her flushed face.

"So…_are you_?" she asks, fanning herself with the cocktail list.

"Am I…?" he repeats, taking a distracted sip of water to moisten his own parched mouth.

Kate watches the bob of his Adam's apple when he swallows. His jaw and throat bear a dark shadowy layer of scruff, indicating that he hasn't shaved since she last saw him. She finds her eyes treacherously drawn back up to his lips when a bead of water lingers there. She flicks her tongue out to swipe an imaginary droplet from her own lips, mirroring the action Castle makes with his own mouth, and he sees it all.

She's flustered, thrown off kilter by what amounts to an ambush, and the minute she gets out of here, she is going to _kill_ Lanie. But first she goes on the attack, since everyone knows that's the best form of defence.

"_So…_should I even ask how you found out I was having lunch here today? Or will you just tell me that you know a guy?" jokes Kate, giving him a winning smile, feeling a high-like euphoria course through her when he instantly smiles back.

_Oh, he knows a guy alright._

"Actually, that's why I'm here in person saying…thank goodness I did _not_ decide to bring you flowers because those are…_wow!_" he remarks, going slightly off track when he notices that she's still cradling the unwieldy blooms in her lap.

Castle holds up his hand to flag down a passing waiter. "Could you find a bucket of water for my partner's sunflowers?" he asks the slightly bemused young man.

Once relieved of the giant, yellow flowers, Kate is free to settle down at the table, try to relax and take in more of her surroundings, as well as the man sitting opposite her. She feels excited and hopeful all of a sudden. This is everything she hoped would come of their painful exchange the other night: time alone together to see if they can get beyond the hurtful choices she made in the past, to make something more of their relationship than that of friends and partners.

* * *

"So…uh…you look nice," says Castle, by way of opener, before nervously clearing his throat.

Kate looks down at her simple white shirt and jeans combo and then back up at her partner. "If I'd known this was going to turn into a—"

She stops herself before the word 'date' comes slipping out and reconsiders.

"Thank you," she offers instead, graciously acknowledging his compliment, though she still considers it undeserved. "You don't look too shabby yourself. Blue suits you. But then you know that already or you wouldn't be—" Kate swallows, stops rambling mindlessly. "Actually, why don't we change the subject?"

Castle nods, keen to avoid any awkward pitfalls until he gets what he has to say out of the way. "Good idea. Why don't we get some menus? Order some food. Have you been here before?" he asks, looking around for a waiter.

Their stilted conversation is starting to sound suspiciously like blind-date small talk and it's making Kate nervous. What if they are no good at this? What if they only work on one level – that of partners who are attracted to one another but can't make the transition to the next level once all the barriers are cleared out of the way.

"Uh…yeah. Lanie likes the…the uh…"

She loses her train of thought when Castle reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a spectacle case. He snaps it open and puts on a pair of clear-framed glasses.

How did she not know this about him – that he wears glasses to read now. When did this happen? He looks sexy…well, _sexier_, she thinks, as she snatches up her water glass again and gulps a mouthful to cool herself down.

"Is it hot in here or is it just—" She fans herself with the small cocktail list again, startling when the full-size food menu suddenly appears over her right shoulder.

"_Hmm?_" murmurs Castle, reaching out to accept the large menu being offered to him by their server.

"Hmm?" repeats Kate, giving him a questioning look.

"You were saying…"

"I was?"

"Lanie likes the…fill in the blank."

"Oh, yes. Sorry!" Kate flushes. "She likes the Sake."

"Why am I not surprised," mumurs Castle, his eyes now focused on the menu, though in truth this is to prevent him staring at his beautiful partner and completely freaking her out. Anymore than he has so obviously freaked her out already.

* * *

They both fall silent for a while, lost in thought, mulling the decisions they'll shortly have to make regarding their choice of food. When Castle suggests that they share a couple of appetizers and decide on entrees later, Kate jumps at the chance to absolve herself of any further thought than is necessary, since all she really wants to focus on is why Castle is here and what's coming next.

The server finally departs with an order for some shrimp dumplings and a serving of the crispy calamari to share. Castle also orders a bottle of Riesling and a second bottle of water for the table, after Kate agrees to leave the wine choice up to him.

Castle studies her while he orders for them, suspicious of her easy compliance. But then he did spring this lunch on her and she is probably wondering why, so he decides to cut to the chase in the hopes that they can get the whole _'I lied to protect you too, please forgive me'_ mess out of the way and get on and enjoy their first date, if that's what this turns out to be.

Yeah, probably not going to be that easy, he acknowledges to himself, when he looks up from his napkin to find Kate opening staring at him.

"What?" he asks, instantly touching his fingers to his mouth. "Do I have something—?"

Kate chuckles softly and he relaxes a little. She looks so happy, if still a little flushed with anxiety. "I've never seen you wearing glasses before, that's all," she admits, with an attractive twinkle in her eye.

"Ah, these," replies Castle, taking his spectacles off and folding them away. "Sign of age, I guess."

"Whatever," shrugs Kate, reaching for her water. "They suit you. How long?"

"Thank you. And you mean how long have I had them?"

Kate nods, hiding her smile with her water glass.

"Six months," admits Castle, with a sheepish grin.

"_Six months!_" parrots Kate, almost choking on her water. "And this is the first time I get to see you wearing them? _Why?_"

Castle covers his eyes with his hands and then scrubs them down over his face. "I didn't want you to think I was getting old," he admits, with a wince, color warming his own cheeks an attractive shade of pink.

Kate lets out a peal of laughter that draws amused and admiring glances from the surrounding tables. "_Vanity?_ Castle, you were _too_ _vain_ to let me see you wearing glasses…even though you clearly need them?"

"What do you mean _'clearly need them'_?" he asks, indignantly.

"Oh, come on," teases Kate. "I see the way you lean over my shoulder when we're reading a report. Any closer and you'd be sitting in my lap."

"Ever cross your mind that maybe I just wanted an excuse to get close to you?" he asks, deadpan this time, casually sipping his own water.

Kate coughs the word _'bullshit'_ under her breath and then she slowly shakes her head at him, an amused smile tugging at her lips. "Flirt all you like, Casanova. I know short-sighted when I see it."

* * *

Their food will be here any minute and Castle knows that the window he has to tell her about Smith and his own set of lies is rapidly narrowing to the point of severe discomfort.

So he takes a deep breath and attempts to dive in. "So, Kate, there's something I've been meaning to tell you too."

The wine waiter appears right at that instant with their bottle of Riesling and an ice bucket, which he proceeds to noisily position beside their table.

Kate gives Castle a smile of encouragement when she catches him looking pained. But he decides to hold off on his confession until after the sommelier departs. He waves away the usual rigmarole of swilling the wine around his glass, sniffing and tasting it, telling the man just to go ahead and pour two glasses instead.

"I trust you," he offers the slightly miffed wine waiter, who he has just deprived of his moment of glory by forcing him to depart the table without impressing the beautiful brunette with his extensive knowledge of German wines.

"I thought he was never going to go," mutters Castle, lifting his wine glass to clink against Kate's when she offers up a smiling _'Cheers'_.

Kate frowns in amusement at his grumbling. "Are you okay?" she chuckles. "You seem a little tense."

"Yeah, fine," sighs Castle, taking another deep breath and carefully setting his glass down.

"So, you were saying? Something you had to tell me?" reminds Kate, sitting back in her seat to listen attentively.

"Yes. So, Kate, after you were sho—"

* * *

When Kate's cell phone begins to ring he is temped to grab it out of her hand and dunk it in his water glass. He barely manages to contain himself when she fishes it out of her purse and cradles it in her palm.

Kate checks the screen and then looks back up at Castle, a guilty expression on her face. "I am _so_ sorry. That's the Precinct. Do you mind?"

Castle throws his hands in the air. "No, please. Of course, you have to take it," he concedes, reaching for his wine glass.

He watches her rise elegantly from the table, unfolding her long legs and then stride off towards a more discreet area of the restaurant that leads down towards the bathrooms.

Once Kate is gone, he happens to glance to the side, catching the eye of the man seated at the table next to them.

"First date?" the man asks, giving him a sympathetic smile. "Me too," the stranger adds before Castle can even answer, his lunch partner having departed for the ladies' room a few minutes beforehand. "It's the small talk I'm no good at," the man complains, blotting his sweat-dampened forehead with his napkin.

Castle manages to give him a tight, wordless, grimace of a smile before he turns away to drown his own nerves in another mouthful of wine.

* * *

True to form, their appetizers arrive just as Kate is returning to the table.

"That was good timing," she beams, as she re-takes her seat, the beautiful smile she offers her partner doing all sorts of wonderful and terrible things to his insides.

Before she can reach for a morsel of food, the man at the table next to them reaches across the narrow gap and taps her arm. "We're on our first date too," he tells her with a wink, before standing when his date returns from the bathroom.

Kate pauses with her fork in midair, glancing first at Castle and then back up at the two happy strangers, who are now preparing to leave the restaurant.

"Is that so?" she grins, politely, while gritting her teeth. "Well, I hope yours goes better than ours," she adds, kicking Castle's foot beneath the table.

"_Ow!_ What was that for?" grumbles Castle, giving her a wounded look the second their neighbors depart for wherever.

"I leave you alone for two minutes and you're telling our business to all and sundry?" she laughs, stealing a piece of crispy calamari from the prongs of Castle's fork with her fingers and daintily popping it into her mouth.

"_He_ started talking to _me_," protests Castle. "And for the record, I did _not_ say one word. He just assumed."

"Why on earth would he do that?" pushes Kate, enjoying Castle's brief moment of misery, after she went through the ringer the night before.

"I don't know," he shrugs, taking a sip of water. "Maybe because I look so nervous," he offers, in a moment of guileless honesty, not to mention complete and utter madness.

Kate puts her fork down and narrows her eyes at him. "Now you mention it…why _do_ you look so nervous? Can't handle being on a date with your partner?"

Castle's eyes widen. "Oh, _now_ who's flirting, Detective Beckett?"

"Isn't that why we're here?" Kate throws back, boldly.

Castle coughs and then takes another long drag of wine.

"You get everything sorted out on the phone?"

"Changing the subject? _Smooth_, Rick," laughs Kate, her eyes dancing as she watches her partner squirm. "Oh, and the Precinct thing was nothing. They needed a cold case file I'd borrowed. It can wait until Monday," she shrugs, feeling a warm glow spreading inside at the thought of being back at work with Castle by her side, all the old barriers finally removed from between them.

Thoughts of _other things_ being...removed swiftly follows, and she finds herself reaching for the ice water once more to control her rapidly climbing body temperature.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Castle is a worried man. They are getting further and further away from the point where he feels comfortable bringing up his own secrets. But he knows that he simply has to find a way to come clean to her before things go any further between them.

They finally settle down to focus on eating their food for a few minutes, glancing over at one another now and again in a rather sweet, slightly coy game of cat and mouse. Castle has lost sight of who is the cat in this scenario. In fact, he'd rather be the Road Runner right now, if his legs could carry him out of here fast enough, taking his terrible secret with him, to preserve that happy, flirtatious look on Kate's face for just a little while longer.

The waiter appears to top up their wine and clear away their empty plates, just as Castle is working up to another attempt to explain.

He gives up. It's just not happening. Not here.

"Kate, I'm sorry," he says, leaning in to gain a little more privacy. "This lunch was a mistake."

The smile fades from her mouth in a heartbeat and her expression becomes one of wounded confusion, followed closely by utter disappointment. "Castle, I know we're new at this and I'm probably a little rusty, but—"

Castle shakes his head and reaches out to take her hand. "That's not what I meant. Kate, I came here because I had something to tell you and—" He looks around them at the happy, bustling, noisy throng of people enjoying lunch. "This just isn't the right place. Do you understand?" he asks, tilting his head to one side, wishing he hadn't had to burst her bubble, but knowing that there is really no way around it.

"What are you saying? I…I don't—" She withdraws her hand from beneath his and gnaws on her lip for a second. "Castle, are you _seeing_ someone?" she whispers.

The air leaves his lungs in one great whoosh of relief. If she looks this distressed at the thought of him dating someone else, then maybe he stands a chance once he explains himself. "God, no. No, of course not. Why would you even _think_ that?" he asks, squeezing her hand.

Kate looks marginally more relieved. "Then what can you possibly have to tell me that has you looking so…so _terrified_?"

"Would you mind if we got the check and went somewhere quieter?" he asks, scanning the dining room for their waiter.

"Not until you tell me what's going on?"

"Kate, please…not here," he begs.

When he first imagined this lunch, he thought a public place might work, might force them to be civil, to keep a lid on their emotions, to actually talk things through. He can't believe how wrong he was. He should have gone to her apartment or invited her over to the loft, explained there, where they could thrash things out in private, where he might have had a change to hold her, to reassure her that everything that he did was done out of love for her and with a desire to protect.

But he can tell from the determined look on her face right now that he has come to this realization too late.

* * *

"Castle? _Rick?_" she asks again, pleading with her eyes this time.

Castle runs a hand down over his face and then he looks straight at her, meeting her strained gaze. "You weren't the only one who lied and kept secrets," he admits, watching with a terrible sinking feeling as the light goes out of her eyes.

"Go on," she says, stiffly, her face hardening with suspicion; a hazard of her job, where most of her days are spent figuring out who is the biggest liar of them all.

"Kate, honestly, it would be better if—"

"Castle, I swear to God…" she cuts in angrily, biting her lip to rein herself back in. "Look, just tell me what you've been hiding," she adds, lowering her voice to a more reasonable level.

"And you'll give me a fair hearing?"

"Talk first, bargain later," she fires back, like the pro interrogator he has long admired in the box.

"No. Not until you tell me that you'll hear me out…like I listened to you," he insists.

She slumps back in her seat and crosses her arms protectively over her chest. "I'm not liking where this is going."

"You don't have to like it. Just give me a fair chance to explain. That's all I'm asking."

Kate shrugs, her decision evidently reached. It cuts Castle to the quick to see the pain, suspicion, fear, and, finally, tears in her eyes.

"I knew this was too good to be true," she says, mostly to herself. "Go on then. Let's hear it," she whispers hoarsely, lifting her wine glass and taking a healthy sip to calm her.

She has to concentrate to prevent her hand from shaking when she gingerly places the glass back down on the table. She can now see how serious this is going to be by the look of fear and dejection passing across Castle's eyes.

* * *

"After you were shot," he says quietly, leaning in so that only Kate can hear, "after you left town, the boys and I carried on digging, as you know, trying to find out who was behind the attempt on your life, trying to join the dots between Montgomery's death, your mom's murder and your shooting. One night I received a phone call."

Kate shakes her head, as if trying to clear her mind. "A call?" she frowns. "A call from whom? About what?"

Castle doesn't answer her questions directly. "I thought I'd found the money trail leading to the guy who was paid to kill your mother. But then we found out that the bank the guys had been using to handle the ransom money had closed down, and, well, you already know about the warehouse fire that destroyed the bank records. So, we hit a dead end, and then Gates kicked me out of the Precinct."

"Castle, _the call_? Just tell me about the call," she demands, impatiently.

"Before Montgomery went into that hangar, he sent a package to someone, someone…he trusted. It contained information damaging to the person behind all this. Montgomery was trying to protect you. But the package didn't arrive until after you'd been shot. Montgomery's friend…struck a deal with them. If they left you alone, the package and the information inside would never see the light of day. But they made one condition—you had to back off. And that's the reason you're alive, Kate, because you stopped."

Kate's eyes widen and she uncrossed her arms, leaning towards him, her elbows resting on the table. "How do you know this?" she asks, with an unsettling feeling that she already knows the answer.

"In order for the deal to work, someone had to make sure you weren't pursuing it."

She sits back again, needing to put distance between herself and her increasingly guilty looking partner. "Are you a part of this?" she whispers, weakly, feeling sick to her stomach.

"I was just trying to keep you safe," Castle promises, an air of desperation about his voice; he can see already that he's in danger of losing her.

Beckett turns and looks away from him, away from their table. She pauses, blinking, swallowing, taking a moment, until she's able to turn and face him again.

"By _lying_ to me about the most important thing in my life?" she demands, their present surroundings forcing her to control her voice and her anger.

"That lie was the only thing that was protecting you," insists Castle, trying to modulate his own voice so that they avoid attracting the attention of the diners nearby.

"Castle, I didn't need protection. I needed a _lead_, and you sat on it for almost a year. Now, who is this person? How do I find him?" she asks, suddenly snapping back to her businesslike self.

"He's a—a voice on the phone. He's a shadow in a parking garage," he explains, knowing that there is no way her can keep the little he knows from her any longer.

Kate grips the edges of the table and lists towards him once more, her elbows locked at her sides, holding her up. "You _met_ with him? How do you know that he's not behind my mom's murder? How do you know that he's not involved? And how the _hell _could you do this?" she hisses, the legs of her chair scraping loudly against the travertine floor when she stands abruptly.

Castle looks stricken when he raises his eyes to her. "Because I love you. But you already know that," he says, sounding utterly defeated. "That's why we're here."

Kate shakes her head, and a single tear courses down her cheek, before she grabs her purse, turns and wordlessly leaves the restaurant.

* * *

People stare at both of them in turn, as is their way. They stare at the tall, striking stranger with tears in her eyes, her cheek bitten inside, her hands clenched into fists to stop her from losing control in this public setting. And when she's gone, they turn, as if it were a tennis match, to stare at what they assume is the other half of this lover's tiff – the culprit, most likely.

Castle is too distraught to care about prying eyes. He knows from bitter restaurant experience past that the conversation in the room will reignite in a moment, eyes will return to glasses and plates, and he will be but a minor footnote in an otherwise entertaining meal.

This could not have gone any more terribly if he had tried. She heard him out, as he asked, but she did not ask the clarifying questions he tried to ask of her. She did not try for one second to see things from his point of view, and she did not try to understand. She let her hurt and her obsessive ownership of her mother's case – the way she guards it like a tigress protecting her young – color her view of what he genuinely believed he had to do to keep her safe.

But her mother's case is no longer just hers anymore. Montgomery paid with his life to keep her safe, Ryan and Esposito have put themselves in harms way too by investigating when they could, Kate almost paid the ultimate price for justice, and so Castle sees his role in this endeavor as equal to her own, for they are partners, and no way is he letting her pursue this alone.

He hastily pulls his wallet from his pants pocket and mentally calculates the bill, adding a substantial gratuity for good measure. He folds the notes and is in the process of sliding them beneath his water glass when the waiter appears at the table.

"Will the lady be returning? Can I get you anything else?" he asks, as Castle hands him the money, thanks him, and then blindly brushes past in pursuit of his partner.

The last thing he hears, as he forges through the restaurant's front doors, is a cry of, "Sir, you forgot your sunflowers."

_TBC..._

* * *

_Note: I used some of the original script from Castle and Kate's confrontation scene at her apartment in 'Always' to tie this AU version back to canon, just in case you noticed something familiar about the dialogue in the second last section near the very end of this chapter. _

_I should also add that I decided to give Castle a pair of the same glasses that Nathan Fillion wears. ;)_


	10. Chapter 10 - And I'll Keep Paying

_A/N: Thanks for hanging in there with me. :)_

* * *

**Chapter 10: And I'll Keep Paying**

_Previously…_

_"Castle, I didn't need protection. I needed a lead, and you sat on it for almost a year. Now, who is this person? How do I find him?" she asks, suddenly snapping back to her businesslike self._

_"He's a—a voice on the phone. He's a shadow in a parking garage," he explains, knowing that there is no way her can keep the little he knows from her any longer._

_Kate grips the edges of the table and lists towards him once more, her elbows locked at her sides, holding her up. "You met with him? How do you know that he's not behind my mom's murder? How do you know that he's not involved? And how the hell could you do this?" she hisses, the legs of her chair scraping loudly against the travertine floor when she stands abruptly._

_Castle looks stricken when he raises his eyes to her. "Because I love you. But you already know that," he says, sounding utterly defeated. "That's why we're here."_

_Kate shakes her head, and a single tear courses down her cheek, before she grabs her purse, turns and wordlessly leaves the restaurant._

_He hastily pulls his wallet from his pants pocket and mentally calculates the bill, adding a substantial gratuity for good measure. He folds the notes and is in the process of sliding them beneath his water glass when the waiter appears at the table._

"_Will the lady be returning? Can I get you anything else?" he asks, as Castle hands him the money, thanks him, and then blindly brushes past in pursuit of his partner._

_The last thing he hears, as he forges through the restaurant's front doors, is a cry of, "Sir, you forgot your sunflowers."_

* * *

Castle explodes out into West 16th Street like a rifling bullet from the barrel of a gun, spinning right and then left as he scans the street, leaving the door to slam noisily behind him. The side street is quiet enough and Kate is tall enough that he can see from the briefest of glances that she isn't headed down that way. Which leaves the much busier option of Union Square.

Diners sitting in the restaurant's outside terrace eye him curiously for a few seconds, before returning to their meals. If any of them saw Kate leave and guess who he's looking for, no one offers up any help or points him in the right direction. He's on his own.

It's almost three o'clock in the afternoon and the Greenmarket runs until six, so the Square is still teeming with tourists and New Yorkers alike, all out Saturday shopping, their pace more leisurely than on a weekday, the throng between here and there, all across Union Square moving as slowly and as thickly as molasses. He scans the square itself and all the streets he can see from his current vantage point, looking for a tall brunette in jeans and a white shirt, but he draws a complete and utter blank.

Castle takes a moment, tries to calm his raging desperation to find her so that he can think. He attempts to quiet his mind and think rationally. But every heartbeat is a second, every second a stride, every stride taking her further away from him and _ahhhhhh!_ He can't think straight.

She was wearing sandals, he suddenly remembers: fancy, flat, gold sandals. He saw them when she went to take the call from the Precinct, marveled at the sexy black nail varnish on her perfectly manicured toes. In heels the woman can outrun him, in flats he has no chance of catching her unless he thinks about this smartly and…

He fishes for his cell phone as he turns left onto the western edge of Union Square for want of a better plan.

* * *

"Come on. Come on. Pick up, Kate. Pick up," he mutters to himself, as he waits for the call to connect, the fingers of his free hand raking fresh tramlines through his hair.

"You have reached the cell phone of Detective Kate Beckett. I'm sorry I can't—"

"Ahhhh! God _dammit!_" he curses, drawing a wary look from a woman with a stroller. He raises his hand in apology and turns away.

"Come on, Rick, think this through. Where would she go? She's upset, she—"

He returns to his cell phone again, pacing up and down in front of the Puma sports store next door to the restaurant while he flicks through his contacts list.

"_Lanie?_ Lanie, it's Castle. Is Kate with you? I mean, has she called you at least?" he barks, sounding like a lunatic.

"_Woah_, slow down there, writer boy," drawls the M.E. "I thought Kate was with _you?_"

Castle scrubs his free hand over his face before answering. "She was, but—"

"Oh, now what did you do? Lunch was at one, Castle. What did you say to her to send her running this fast?"

"I didn't—" He sighs in frustration. "Well, I did. I told her…_everything_. So _stupid!_" he berates himself, not making an ounce of sense to Lanie.

"Okay, now, you need to slow down, start making some sense and tell Lanie what happened," soothes the laidback M.E.

"I— Look, I know this sounds really bad, since I'm basically asking for your help for the second time in one day, but I can't exactly tell you what we were talking about. Not in detail. It concerns her mom's case. That's all I can say, but—"

"Are you trying to tell me you finally plucked up the damn courage to take that girl out on a date, and you brought up her _mother's murder_?" asks Lanie, her incredulity quite plain to hear.

Castle winces. "When you say it like that—"

"You can say it any which way you please, ain't never gonna make _that_ sound any better. Castle, you have to find her and you have to fix this mess once and for all. You feel me?"

"I feel—yeah, I hear you," corrects Castle, feeling well and truly chastised.

"Now, I know you love her and I'm pretty sure she loves you, though God only knows why," mutters an exasperated Lanie. "_Use_ that. Whatever you said to upset her, you need to tell the truth and make her listen. It's time you two stop talking in riddles and start being honest with each other, before it's too late."

"Lanie, I'm trying, believe me. I want nothing more."

"I'm glad to hear it. Now go find our girl and call me when this is over."

* * *

Something snaps into place after Lanie abruptly ends their call. Castle manages to focus long enough to formulate a plan. If Kate won't answer her cell phone, the next logical thing to do is to go over to her apartment and try to find her there. So he cuts diagonally across the Square, heading for East 14th Street and Broadway, where he can hail a cab headed downtown. He skips quickly down the steps of the open paved area, which is strewn with a mishmash of teenage skateboarders, homeless people and foot-weary tourists.

Finding a cab is no problem, and he sinks inside the grey interior with a sense of purpose-fueled relief, giving the driver Kate's address so forcefully that he's almost yelling by the time he finishes, since he doesn't have time to repeat himself today.

The cab lurches out into busy afternoon traffic and Castle takes the opportunity to call Kate again during the journey, determined to leave her a message this time.

His mind goes blank the second her voicemail kicks in and his hopes of actually speaking to her are dashed.

He scrambles to find the right words, stuttering and stammering over a ridiculously wordy message that he thankfully manages to delete, before taking a deep breath and trying again.

"Kate, hi. It's me." He presses his cell phone closer to his mouth and cups his hand over the microphone to eradicate any outside noise, trying to make his message come over in as sincere and intimate in tone as he can. "Look, we need to talk…clearly. I know I ambushed you by hijacking your girls' lunch and then I kind of sprung the whole Smith thing on you. It was a disaster and I take full responsibility. But, Kate, I need to see you. We have to sort this out once and for all. Call me…_please?_" he pleads, before he pauses for breath to make sure he's covered all bases and then he hangs up.

He alights on the sidewalk outside of her apartment building and takes a second to look up. It's the middle of the afternoon, so there will be no sign whether she is home or not; no lights, no candles, no curtains or blinds closed. He shakes his head at his own pointless behavior and heads for the front door.

* * *

He lets himself inside the building and climbs the stairs to Kate's floor, out of breath by the time he gets up there. It's a warm afternoon and he's beginning to perspire beneath the lightweight cashmere v-neck sweater he's wearing, so he peels his jacket off and slings it over his shoulder as we walks the final few yards to her door.

"Please be inside," he chants quietly to himself, as he raises his knuckles to knock, holding his breath as he waits for an answer.

If Kate had been home and she had opened the door without checking, Castle would have fallen in on top of her, because his ear is pressed so hard to the wood, listening for any sign or indication of her presence: any hint of footsteps, movement, mice…anything he might be able to hear that would tell him if she in inside or not.

But the silence in the quiet hallway remains unbroken; it reigns like a totalitarian dictator. He dials her cell phone again just to check, just to see if he can hear it ringing from inside the apartment in case she's in there hiding, hoping he'll just give up and walk away.

Nothing.

So he considers his options – does he slump to the floor outside her door and wait for her to come home? She has to come home sometime. But then the thought of not moving, of just sitting there doing nothing to make things right between them is suffocating to the point of panic. So he scribbles her a note, slides it under her door and he leaves. Off in search of inspiration that - without his muse - he seems incapable of finding.

* * *

Meanwhile, back up town, Kate is sitting outside a sunny corner café just two blocks north of Union Square waiting for her dad.

She stands when she sees him approaching, giving him a wave, and then as he gets closer, she greets him with a tight squeeze of a hug.

Jim Beckett hugs his daughter back and then pulls back to give her a kiss on the cheek, before they release one another and sit down.

"Thanks for meeting me at such short notice. I hope I didn't interrupt anything," says Kate, gnawing on her lip.

Her decision to call her dad was rash, spur of the moment. The bombshell Castle dropped about the investigation into her mother's death and a possible new lead, had rattled her, and so it was to her dad that she turned, as her thoughts always did whenever the subject arose.

"Nonsense," assures her father, with a light pat of her hand. "Any excuse to avoid doing laundry and I'm in, you know that."

"You want coffee?" asks Kate, restlessly looking around for service.

"In a minute. First, how about you tell me what's going on? Or should I just take a wild guess and say it might have something to do with a certain mystery novelist?"

Kate covers her face with her hands for a second. "Dad, why does everything have to be so complicated?" she groans, dropping her hands back into her lap to look at him.

"What did Rick do now?" asks her father, with a sympathetic smile.

Kate looks around for a server, raising her hand to get her attention when she spots the young girl of about seventeen who's busy bussing the café's outdoor tables. She's dressed in a worn pair of denim coveralls and a black and white stripy tee. The hem of her pants is rolled up to mid-calf and her pale, narrow feet are slopping around inside a half-laced pair of red Converse All Stars. She looks like she doesn't have a care in the world.

Kate orders coffee for both of them, and Jim Beckett take this opportunity to study his daughter quietly while she talks to the young waitress, prepared to give her time to explain her uncharacteristic need to see him when she's ready. She sounded upset when she called, or as upset as Kate ever gets, and so he's relieved to see her looking calmer, more like her usual self, now that he's here in person.

* * *

The sun is filtering between the buildings opposite, landing perfectly on their little outdoor spot, and it warms their faces where they sit.

"Castle told me you came to see him…before I was shot," Kate eventually offers quietly, looking up from the packet of sugar she's been playing with to glance at her father to see his reaction.

"I was concerned. I knew that what you were doing – pursuing your mother's case – was dangerous…" he nods, drifting back to that time inside his own head; how afraid he felt for her and how fearful he was of losing the only close family he had left.

"You couldn't have come to me?"

Jim Beckett shakes his head and then offers his daughter the barest of smiles. "No, Katie. We both know you wouldn't have listened if I'd asked you to let it go."

"So you went to a complete _stranger_?" asks Kate, taking this opportunity to tackle him on this event once and for all.

"He wasn't a stranger to you. The way you talked about him, I felt like I knew him already... He sounded more like family. I remember you told me once, early on, that you trusted him to have your back on the job even though he wasn't trained. I don't know a lot of cops the way you do, but the bond that comes from that kind of partnership, that trust, seems to me to be a pretty strong one. Rick was your partner, no matter what else might be going on between you two and so—"

"_Nothing_ was going on!" insists Kate, her voice getting a little heated. "Nothing _is _going on," she adds more gently, sinking back in her chair, though this last statement speaks more of regret than anything else.

"Are you sure about that? Because I have the distinct feeling you'd like there to be?" Jim gently suggests.

"Dad, I know we already talked about this. But that was before. He _lied_ to me," she confesses, her heart still weighed down by the fresh disappointment of it all.

"Did he lie to hurt you?"

"_No_," replies Kate, the honesty of a daughter confiding in a father deadening her tone.

"Did he lie to deceive you in some way to gain some personal advantage for himself?" asks Jim Beckett, the voice of reason.

"He lied to protect me," admits Kate with a sigh, her wily father leading her through the list of possible arguments with deft skill gained over years of practicing law.

"And why would he do that?"

The young waitress arrives with their coffee and gently, quietly, places them down on the worn wooden table. Kate smiles up at the girl and thanks her, using the distraction to win herself some thinking time.

* * *

"Katie?" prompts her dad, when she begins stirring her coffee, staring into its endless black depths.

"Because he cares about me," she admits quietly, in an act of contrition.

Her dad smiles at last, a smile of victory.

"Don't look so smug," Kate chides, giving him a little glare.

"And is it possible this lie your partner told is no worse than the lies you told him last summer?"

"He made a _deal_, dad," Kate finally reveals.

"A deal for what?" asks her father, his smile quickly replaced by a worried frown.

"To keep me alive."

"And you're mad at him for _that_?" frowns Jim Beckett, leaning in closer, feeling the distinct need to get to the bottom of this story, which no longer sounds like a simple lover's tiff.

"_I'm_ the cop," rages Kate, clanking her teaspoon noisily against the side of her cup. "_I'm_ the one with the gun…the training. He could have gotten himself killed. And this is _my_ mother's case," she adds, almost as if she has forgotten who she is talking to.

"_Oh_," nods her dad. Falling silent, he sinks back in his seat again and turns his attention to his own cup of coffee.

Kate looks up to see the worry etched into her father's features, and she knows that what she has to tell him will only worry him more, but she is tired of keeping secrets.

* * *

"Before Captain Montgomery died it seems he sent a file of information to a friend for safekeeping. The file contains information that is damaging to the people behind mom's murder. It was intended as some kind of insurance policy that was supposed to keep me safe. Only it arrived too late. _After_ I was shot. According to Castle, the information would remain out of the public domain only so long as I stopped investigating her murder," explains Kate. "At least that's all I managed to learn today."

"And Rick was the one charged with keeping you from investigating?" surmises her father.

Kate nods.

"Poor guy," remarks her dad, shaking his head.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asks Kate, setting her cup down to focus her attention on her father.

"Looks like I'm not the only one trusting him with your safety…with your life. That's quite a responsibility, Katie. You are as strong-willed as your mother. You never listened to me when you got an idea in your head…neither of you. Seems to me Rick Castle has been handed quite the challenge."

"Yeah, well, he was so good at it, I'd still be in the dark right now if he hadn't decided to come clean."

"Would _you_ have come clean to _him_ about last summer had he not caught you in a lie?" asks her dad, perceptively.

Kate shifts position on her chair, discomforted by her father's astute, yet empathetic, mind.

"I thought there was another way round it. A less damaging one. I thought it wouldn't matter once—"

She breaks off and shakes her head at her own stupidity.

"Once what?" prompts her dad.

"Once I told him how I felt about him."

"I see. And were you in danger of doing that anytime soon?"

Kate shrugs. "We were becoming so close. I wanted to."

"So what was stopping you?"

"Fear, I guess."

"That doesn't sound like you. What were you afraid of?" Jim probes, gently.

"Of ruining what we already had. I rely on him so much…just to be there."

"At work?"

Kate shakes her head. "At first. But it's more than that now. You remember with mom you'd come home from work and if you'd had a good day or a bad day, didn't matter. The first person you'd want to talk to about it was her?"

Jim Beckett nods sadly. "I remember. That's one of the things I miss most. Just shooting the breeze. Johanna had a way of putting everything into perspective. Good or bad."

"I'm so sorry, dad," says Kate, hating that she's making her father sad, dredging up old memories and hurts again.

"Don't be sorry. Everyone deserves to know that kind of love and companionship at least once in their life. If you think you might have found that in Rick, don't let it go for the sake of pride or your need for independence, and certainly don't throw it away because he hid this from you to keep you safe. He deserves better than that. And you deserve any man who cares enough about you to carry that burden for all these months."

* * *

Kate looks down at her lap and she runs her nail along the inseam of her jeans, thinking over what her dad has just said.

"Your mother's murder took so much from both of us, Katie. Don't let it take away this chance of happiness. Johanna's fight does not belong to Richard Castle, he owns no part of it. And yet he has been willing to step up every time _you_ or someone else asked, to do whatever he could to help. That's pretty selfless behavior in my book."

"So, you're saying I should just forgive him, overlook the fact that he kept valuable information hidden that could have helped me bring my mom's murderers to justice once and for all?"

Jim Beckett shakes his head. "Katie, you can't know that for sure. But if you decide you need to pursue this now, at least you're still alive to be able to make that happen, all thanks to Rick."

Kate slumps in her chair, her long legs stretched out beneath the table in front of her. The sun sparks off the crystals on the front of her sandals, dazzling her for a second and she shields her eyes and looks away, down the street in the direction from which she came. She wonders where Castle is now, if he's out looking for her, if he called.

She wonders if she was entitled to feel the anger she believed was so justified back at the restaurant, or if her reaction was too knee-jerk, her blame misplaced. She's been carrying the burden of her mother's case for so long by herself that she finds it hard to share, to hand any of the responsibility or control off to anyone else. But if she were to trust anyone with it, it would be Castle. She can at least admit that now.

* * *

"You really like him," she comments quietly, turning a growing smile on her father.

"I think he's a good man," agrees her dad. "And he's a father himself. He understands how that works. Children are a gift, Katie. They are both ultimate joy and an endless source of worry. You never stop caring no matter how old your child gets. One day I hope you get a chance to experience that for yourself," says Jim, squeezing Kate's hand.

"Hmm. One step at a time," grins Kate, bashfully looking away from her father's knowing gaze.

"Anyway, what matters more is how much _you_ like him?" points out her dad, giving her arm a playful shove. "Do you like him enough to work through this rough patch and get out the other side without losing sight of what's really important?"

Kate changes the subject and they finish their coffee while catching up on family news, talking about Kate's latest case and her dad's upcoming hunting trip.

"Got any plans for later?" she asks, her face tilted up to enjoy the last of the sun's rays before it drops below the buildings opposite.

"Actually, I think I'll go to a meeting," says Jim, checking his watch. "There's one at St. Brendan's at six o'clock and Frank should be there," he tells her, referring to his sponsor. "Then I'm joining Peggy and Sal for steaks at Maloney's. You're welcome to join us, if you can stand to listen to Peggy regale the whole restaurant with intimate details of her latest doctor visit," offers her father, with a chuckle.

Kate pats his arm, the low-level, but ever-present, threat from his alcoholism stabbing at something deep inside of her. "Thanks for the offer. But I think there's someone I should see first."

"No time like the present," says her dad, giving her a wink.

They part with a hug and a promise to meet for brunch next weekend, since they've managed to get all caught up on their news today. Kate watches her father walk off up the street en route to meet his sponsor, relentlessly fighting his demons. If he can do that with no complaint and such quiet courage all these years later, then she can tackle her own demons too, and maybe show Castle a little more faith and a lot more gratitude that she has thus far, she hopes.

* * *

Castle is fresh out of ideas and Kate still hasn't returned his call. She hasn't checked in with Lanie either, so he gives up his search of her usual haunts and heads home to regroup.

He slides his key into the lock with all the lassitude of a weary man, pushing the door open without thinking, he mind off somewhere else, just relieved to finally be home. He plans to take a shower, maybe lie down for a while, and he's suddenly hungry, since he ate little during their disastrous lunch, which was over several hours ago.

He heads straight for the refrigerator to get a bottle of water, managing to stick his head inside the cool interior before he hears his mother clear her throat and stand, accompanied by the familiar backing track of jingling bracelets.

He takes his time reaching for the water and then he straighten up, turning to face the stream of questions he knows will inevitably follow.

"Darling, we have company. Look who's here," says his mother, brightly, wearing the stiff, sprayed-on smile of a 1950's hostess.

His heart somersaults at the sight of Kate - dressed just as he last saw her - rising slowly from the sofa to stand next to his mother, a glass of white wine in her hand.

She offers him what he would probably describe as a tentative smile – slightly hesitant, unsure of the reception she's about to get, no doubt.

"I called you three times," says Castle, completely ignoring his mother's presence. "You couldn't call me back?"

Kate drops her head to look down at her feet and her shoulders slump a little. "Castle, I'm sorry—"

Martha squeezes Kate's arm and then she turns to address her son. "Richard, I'm going out for the night. Alexis is staying with a friend. I'll leave you two alone to talk," she adds quietly, giving Kate a parting smile of encouragement.

_TBC..._


	11. Chapter 11 -Turned My Whole World Around

_A/N: So, angst might not be what everyone feels like right now, after that dramatic season finale. But maybe we can just look on this story as something familiar to grab onto instead._

_I've used another little piece of script from 'Always', since I wanted to put it through the wringer and see what color it came out this time. ;)_

_Hope you enjoy..._

* * *

**Chapter 11: Turned My Whole World Around**

_Previously…_

_"Darling, we have company. Look who's here," says his mother, brightly, wearing the stiff, sprayed-on smile of a 1950's hostess._

_His heart somersaults at the sight of Kate - dressed just as he last saw her - rising slowly from the sofa to stand next to his mother, a glass of white wine in her hand._

_She offers him what he would probably describe as a tentative smile – slightly hesitant, unsure of the reception she's about to get, no doubt._

_"I called you. Three times," says Castle, completely ignoring his mother's presence. "You couldn't call me back?"_

_Kate drops her head to look down at her feet and her shoulders slump a little. "Castle, I'm sorry—"_

_Martha squeezes Kate's arm and then she turns to address her son. "Richard, I'm going out for the night. Alexis is staying with a friend. I'll leave you two alone to talk," she adds quietly, giving Kate a parting smile of encouragement._

* * *

"Subtle, mother," mutters Castle, turning away from his mom with a shake of his head. "_Real_ subtle."

"I...I'm sure she means well," Kate says quietly, as they both watch Martha waltz out the front door in a blaze of rainbow color.

"I'd ask if you want something to drink, but…" Castle points to Kate's wineglass with the neck of his water bottle. "My mother is nothing if not the perfect hostess."

Kate stands awkwardly between the coffee table and the sofa forcing herself to feel Castle's anger for the second time in so many days, allowing him to express his feelings without shutting the moment down or walking away from him again. They are slowly learning to be in the same room as their feelings, no matter how raw or uncomfortable it makes them. The process is slow – glacially so – but it comes with small rewards; like the chance to push themselves a little closer together if they dare be brave enough. They care, _a lot_, that's for damn sure, or neither of them would endure this; keep coming back for more, keep raining down blows, fighting them off, delivering them, accepting them, trading, ducking, bruising, learning, growing…ever closer.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you back," Kate repeats, raising her head from staring at the floor to look at him. "And I shouldn't have run out on you either. That was…"

"Typical?" suggests Castle, with arrow like acerbity that cuts straight to the heart of the matter.

He takes off his jacket and throws it over the back of one of the dining room chairs, leaving him in just the baby blue cashmere sweater he wore to lunch; an ultra fine knit that shows off his muscular physique to great effect, with a vee that dips down below his throat to expose the smooth, tan skin beneath his clavicle.

Kate swallows and stares. He kept his jacket on the entire time they were at the Blue Water Grill, so she never got to see him like this. The sweater is distracting to say the least.

"I…I was actually going to say hurtful. I wasn't thinking straight. You caught me off guard…with this Smith and everything. But that's still no excuse."

Her apology is helping, though she doesn't believe that it is. Castle can see a change in her attitude and it calms him a little.

* * *

"Is there any of that wine left or did my mother drink it all?" he asks, nodding towards Kate's glass.

Kate looks up in surprise at his question, which veers dangerously close to civil, even amusing.

"I—" She shakes her head and gestures vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, shrugging with one shoulder. "I think she opened the bottle for me. I only got here five minutes ahead of you. I don't think Martha took a drop."

"Wonders never cease," mutters Castle, setting his bottle of water down on the coffee table beside Kate's glass of wine. "You might want this. I'll get another and join you in a glass of wine, if you're staying?" he says, raising his eyebrows to give her a pointed, questioning look.

"I got your message, Castle. So…I'm here. You were right. We need to talk. There's a lot of…" Kate pauses and Castle waits for her to carry on. "I called my dad after I left. That's where I went," she admits, looking him in the eye.

"Your _dad's_ place? I didn't even think to look there," admits Castle, without stopping to consider how his comment basically reveals that he went searching the city for her.

"No, he…we met at a coffee shop on Broadway. You went _looking_ for me?" asks Kate, slowly sitting back down.

Castle stops en route to the kitchen and turns back. "Where on Broadway?"

"Corner of East 20th. Why?"

She was just four blocks away from where they started out. How can he have missed her, he wonders, shaking his head and heading back to the refrigerator to pour himself a glass of wine and get the bottle of water he now desperately needs. He doesn't know whether to be pleased or worried that she felt the need to run to her father. He consoles himself with the thought that Jim Beckett seemed to be in his corner over her decision to flee the city last summer and cut him out of her life. With any luck, the man is still on his side, if he knows what's good for his daughter.

* * *

When Castle returns from the kitchen, Kate is seated on the sofa with her knees and feet draw neatly together, her hands clasped on top. She looks expectant and anything but comfortable, as if she's waiting to be called in to a job interview perhaps.

"At ease, Beckett," Castle jokes, dryly. He purposefully takes the armchair at right angles to the couch to give them both a little breathing space and give himself a chance to observe her without being overly affected by her presence in his home, which has always had a powerful impact on him – making him long for things he was pretty sure he'd never have.

He spent the afternoon out looking for her, walking from place to place – everywhere he could think held any significance for her – and now that she's here, instead of feeling grateful, he just feels exhausted and cross; both at Kate and with himself. The optimism he felt when he wrangled a lunch date out from under Lanie has dimmed somewhat. He's starting to feel defeated.

Castle lifts his wineglass to his lips and takes a sip. "I'd say cheers, but…"

"No, it's fine," murmurs Kate, shaking her head dismissively and reaching for her own glass.

There is nothing to celebrate at this point; there are no victories here, just another personal battle to be slugged out between them.

They fall silent again, neither able to intuit what the other is thinking, just glad to be in the same space for as long as that lasts this time round.

Castle fingers a USB flash drive he has nestled in the palm of his hand inside his pants pocket. Squeeze and release. Squeeze and release. He finally takes it out and places it on the coffee table. With a push of his fingers he sends it spinning towards her.

"What is _that_?" asks Kate, eyeing the small purple figure wobbling on the polished glass surface in front of her.

"You wanted information. A lead. I assume that's mostly why you're here. So there it is."

They both stare down at the item lying on the tabletop. It looks ridiculous - a little purple ninja figure with a mask over its face and a sword strapped to its back - the only empty USB stick he had available when he went to meet her today. It lies there on the table between them begging for a smile that neither of them is capable of raising right now.

"But if you run at this…" Castle continues, before Kate can reach for the flash drive, "…I don't know how much longer Smith can protect you, Kate. And I can't start something here, with us, if I'm just going lose you. I can't do it," he says, definitively, his jaw set hard.

"_Can't _or _won't_?" she asks calmly, her question arising out of genuine curiosity and not a place of combat, though Castle clearly doesn't hear it that way.

"Can't _and_ won't…it's immaterial. Semantics," he shrugs, pushing the memory stick further towards her.

"So…what are you saying?" asks Kate, her fingers itching to reach for the flash drive just so that she can tell herself she has it in her possession. No need to use it, no need to even look at it. Just having access to the most up-to-date information on her mom's case is enough. At least she hopes it will be enough.

"It would destroy me. If something were to happen…I'd feel responsible."

Kate nods. She knows how that feels. She confronted the same fear over and over again after she was shot and was forced to relive all the 'what if' scenarios her mind kept inventing for that day at the cemetery. She lost count of the number of dreams she endured where Castle was the one lying bleeding out on the grass, his head cradled in her lap, his hair warm and soft against her fingers, his blue eyes growing unfocussed and cloudy as she fought to keep him with her.

* * *

Kate suddenly kicks off her sandals without thinking and lifts her feet up onto the sofa, curling up and hugging her knees as she would if she were at home. She looks so much younger like this, in her jeans and white shirt, her hair falling around her shoulders, a slight glow to her skin from the sun she got sitting outside with her dad this afternoon.

Castle watches her, trying to figure out what she's thinking. He knows this is a risk. He's practically forcing her to choose between him and her mother's case, and before today, he would have said that was a fool's errand – that her mother's case would win out every time. Now he's not so sure.

"What's on here?" Kate asks at length, staring warily down at the little ninja warrior as if it might bite.

"Everything. Every file, every lead, right back to the beginning. I can show you if you like. Might help you decide," he adds, with a little bite of hurt.

Kate's gaze flies up, locks with his. "You think this is a _choice?_ _Her_ or _you_?" she frowns, her eyes glittering dark as coal.

Castle shakes his head. "No. I would never…I couldn't ask you to do that," he insists, though in effect he already has.

"I don't think you understand," replies Kate, her eyes softening, though this change is something Castle misses, since he's so caught up in his own misconceptions over this difficult, slightly combative conversation they're having. "This is important to me, yes. Finding my mom's killers and bringing them to justice, it became my—"

"Your life's work. I know," nods Castle, dismissively, watching her reach down to lift the little ninja figure off the table and cradle it in the palm of her hand, turning it over with a childlike fascination he would never have expected of her.

He's heard it all before, watched her drop down that rabbit hole time without number, so he naturally assumes that's what's coming next.

"But _you_ are important to me too," she tells him, looking straight into his eyes.

"Glad to hear it," the writer replies, his tone clipped, his demeanor still deflated and dismissive. He really isn't hearing her.

He's not listening properly, not reading her body language or taking her words to heart, because he still assumes he knows what's coming – she wants a chance to have it all, as usual. She probably thinks she can talk him round, but he can see how that will end and his heart couldn't take it. He closes down, his eyes growing dead, his throat bobbing noisily as he swallows, preparing himself for the worst.

* * *

"Castle, I don't think you get it," she insists, sounding a little brighter, a little more positive.

But this is yet another subtle shift in Kate's mood that the writer misses because he is so caught up inside his own head, listening to the poisonous whispers of years' old demons.

"_I_ don't get it?" he barks, wondering if there is anything he can remain certain of anymore, so afraid of losing her, but unwilling to sit by and wait for it to happen. So he forges on toward what he sees as the inevitable, pushing. "What exactly am I not getting, Beckett?" he asks with a flash of fear-driven anger. "Because seems to me _you_ are the one who doesn't get it."

Kate startles at this sudden vehemence and the sheer volume of his raised voice. It's so out of character. He lowers it a little, but does nothing to lessen the passion in his words. "_Four years_ I've been right here. _Four years_…just waiting for you to just open your eyes to _see_ that I'm right here…and that I'm _more_ than a partner."

Castle stands and begins to pace, too worked up to remain seated any longer. Kate tracks him as he walks the floor in front of the coffee table, his hands making fists by his sides, the veins in his neck throbbing.

He stops walking and turns to face her, a wistful, almost smile softening his face just a fraction. "Every morning, I—I bring you a cup of coffee just so I can see a smile on your face, because I think you are the most...remarkable…maddening…challenging…frustrating person I have ever met. And I love you, Kate, and if…that means _anything_ to you, if you care about me at all, just don't do this."

Kate feels an instinctive flash of anger at being confronted by his ultimatum, unreasonable though she knows her feelings to be deep down. "If I care about…? Castle, you cut a _deal_ for my life like I was some kind of a _child_. _My life_. _Mine._ You don't get to decide," she retaliates, pushing back reflexively, since he pushed her so hard.

Castle looms over her. "You keep going with this, _they're_ gonna decide. They're gonna come for you, Kate."

Kate stands, her hands dropping to her sides, the purple ninja squeezed tight in the palm of one hand. "Let them come. They sent _Coonan_, and he is _dead_. They sent Lockwood, and _he_ is _dead_. And I am still here, Castle! And I am _ready!_"

Castle regards her as if she is insane. "Ready for what? To _die_ for your cause? This isn't a murder investigation anymore, Kate. They've turned it into a war."

"If they want a war, then I will bring them a war, straight to their doorsteps."

Castle shakes his head and begins backing away, heading towards his study. "Well, I guess there's just nothing I can say, is there? Okay, um… Yeah, you're right, Kate, it's your life. You can throw it away if you want, but I'm not gonna stick around and watch you. So this is, uh…over. I'm done," he tells her, with sickening finality, before turning on his heel and leaving the room.

Kate sits down heavily, stunned. She presses her hands between her knees and tries to keep her breathing even. This is so far out of hand. She meant to tell him that her mother's case was important to her, but that he was _far_ more important. But then he went on the attack and she lashed out in a knee-jerk retaliation, all sense flown out the window. They're failing again, before they even start; ripping one another to pieces when they should be shoring each other up.

This has to stop – all the misdirected anger, the miscommunication, the secrets, the lies, the buried, repressed feelings… It has to stop once and for all.

* * *

Kate taps lightly on the door to his office and then she peers around the door when he doesn't answer her. "I'm coming in," she warns him, since leaving his home without hashing this through is no longer an option she can stomach.

Castle is sitting behind his desk, the swivel chair turned to face the window so that his back is to her and all she can see is the top of his head.

There's a window seat over on the far wall, upholstered with padded cushions and filled with tasteful throw pillows. Kate heads for that comfortable-looking sanctuary, her bare feet making almost no sound on the wooden floor. She sits down opposite him, grabs a small pillow to hug to her body, lifts her knees, tucks her feet to one side and curls up in the corner. She lets silence reign for a few seconds, untangling her own thoughts and feelings, and then, when she feels ready, she moves to overthrow.

"That was quite a speech you made out there," she says, watching her partner's face for signs of any tells as to his mood.

Castle keeps his eyes directed at the floor, still seething inside from what she can see. "Could say the same about you," he replies eventually, his voice a rough, low, rumble of sound.

"Castle, I…I keep messing this up. We're—we need to find a better way to say what we want, what we mean," she admits, totally prepared to take responsibility for her own failings in this latest round of miscommunication.

"I think you made yourself pretty clear."

Kate shakes her head until curls dance across her shoulders, glinting golden in the blaze of setting sunlight. "No. What I was trying to say out there, before you yelled at me, is that there _is_ no choice anymore. At one time, yes, I would have run at this case before everything, anything and _anyone_. But you changed all that."

Castle breathes noisily through his nose, through his dissipating anger, still trying to calm down. "That's not what I heard."

"Rick, look at me. Please."

Castle looks up angrily, dragging his gaze up off the floor as if it costs him dearly to do so.

"I can't do this without you. But more than that, I don't _want_ to do it without you anymore. I used to cling onto her case as if it was some kind of life preserver, even when all it was doing was helping me drown. I _owned_ it, Castle. I guarded it, I hoarded it, because it was all I had left of her…and I let it define me. Until I met you. You saw past all of that. You _see_ me as I used to be…before. At least I think you do."

Castle eyes flicker over her face, and she knows that he's looking at her right now, seeing the woman she could be, the scattered remnants of the carefree, happy girl she once was, before a thief broke into her life like the shadow of darkness and stole her happy future from her.

"Getting justice means less to me now than building a life. Talking to my dad today...he made me see that the things you kept from me were no worse than the lies I told you after last summer. He also pointed out what a burden you've been carrying...trying to keep me safe. I'm so sorry, Castle. You don't deserve any of that and yet you never complain."

Castle listens wordlessly, his lips pressed into a thin, resolute line. So Kate carries on, taking advantage of the fact that she has his attention and neither of them is running.

"If something goes right for me now…or wrong…_you_ are the first person I want to share it with, Castle, and I think there's something in that," she confesses, with as much honesty as she knows he deserves.

"Something?"

"A lot. A _whole_ lot."

Castle nods slowly. "I think so too."

* * *

In the end, everything turns on a dime. His need to forgive and forget is buried deep inside his DNA, and can't be kept down for long. He wants a future with her and he will endure almost anything to make that happen - that's just who he is. Her toughened outer shell has been cracked by his love and unwavering care for her, exposing a little of who she used to be, though it will take many more months to chip away at the rest of this protective layer to free her enough to return to the happy, joyful, fun-filled person she once used to be. But she will get there, growing happier than she ever thought possible along the way. The point is, they both want it, and in the end, turns out wanting it enough is all you need to make it happen.

"So...what do we do now?" asks Kate, chewing on her lip, feeling as if she's on the edge of a precipice, about to fall or fly, either way, she's going over.

"You have to figure out what you want, Kate." There is still deep hurt in Castle's voice, and it's filled with a kind of powerless resignation she doesn't like hearing from him, a man normally so filled with fun, optimism, and such a zest for life.

"No. _We_ have to figure out what we want. This isn't just about me anymore. At least I hope it isn't."

Castle sighs, exhausted by all the arguing. "What do you want, Kate? Just tell me what you want? Put everything else aside – your mother's case, the lies we've both been guilty of, the Precinct, Gates, my family…_everything._ Pretend none of it exists. This is just _you_ and _me_."

"But all of that stuff does exist," she points out, never one to live in fantasyland.

Castle looks away in frustration and then he looks straight at her again. "Work with me here?"

She swallows, tamping down her innate need for realism. "What are you saying? Are you saying fresh start?"

"I'm saying…" He sighs and then takes a deep breath. "I'm saying that I've never felt more for any woman than I do for you. _Ever._ You're not easy and you…you can be selfish and closed off at times, Kate, and that scares the hell out of me. But—"

"_But?_" she pushes, knowing that he has a point about her faults and yet still needing to hear the rest of what he has to say. Her heart is suddenly beating too fast for its own good, hope flaring like a flame inside her chest.

"At the risk of sounding like a shampoo commercial, _you_, Katherine Beckett, are worth it. So, tell me what you want. If you can't get past the lies, if you want us to remain just partners, I won't hold it—"

"What? _No!_" she replies forcefully. "How can he even _think_ that after everything we've been through?"

But then what exactly has she done to show him otherwise – she ran today after insisting that she loved him so much she came back for him last summer. She kept him waiting around, snatching scraps of affection when she dared to let them drop at his feet, for the best part of a year. What kind of mixed signals are those?

"Then _what_, Kate? I might believe in magic, but I am no mind reader. You have to tell me…with actual words, what you want from this."

Kate looks trapped for a fraction of a second – like a butterfly beating against glass – and then she takes a deep breath and lets it all go.

"You. This…_us_. I want a shot at normal. I want a _life_, Castle, that is about _more_ than death and the worst that people can think to do to one another." She sets the throw pillow aside, slipping off the window seat onto her knees in front of him and reaches for his hand. "I just want you."

"And the case? This _war_ you were so ready to bring to their door?"

She bites her lip, looks down at her hands, clasped around his, and slowly shrugs her shoulders. "I can drop it, if you think it's too risky. Or we could work on it together…quietly. Whatever you think is best. I promise I'll listen to you from now on, if you _promise_ not to go out on your own, meeting strangers in dark parking garages in the middle of the night. Because if _anything_ happened to you, Rick, I swear to God—" she whispers hoarsely, looking up at the ceiling to stop the tears that are threatening to fall, his hand squeezed tightly in hers.

* * *

Castle seems to consider her proposal for a second and then he nods slowly, making peace with himself or with her, she's not sure which.

"Sounds like we have a deal," he says, his voice, his whole face, flirting with much needed humor. He cannot help but love this woman with all his heart, even when he tries not to. But then she has admitted to the same. They are not so different after all.

Kate laughs, sniffing to cover the small sob of relief that threatens to escape her throat. "Should we shake on it?"

"We could, or—" Castle's eyes twinkle.

"_Or?_" teases Kate, with a hopeful lift of her eyebrows, as a smile breaks out over her face to mirror the one warming her partner's eyes.

Castle's attention lingers on her lips for a second, before his gaze travels back up to meet hers, warming her cheeks as he goes. "I could kiss you," he suggests, tentatively, reaching out to tuck a curl behind her ear.

"Mm," she grins, considering, "...or _I_ could kiss _you_."

"_Seriously_?" laughs Castle. "You're gonna argue about that too?"

Kate shakes her head, still smiling as tears run down her face. "No," she whispers hoarsely, squeezing his hand. "Please…would you just hold me?"


	12. Chapter 12 - And I Kind Of Like It

_A/N: I'm sick right now with a nasty 'summer' cold. So this is a little delayed and if there are errors, that's probably why. I didn't even manage to maintain the same tense yesterday. Hoping I've worked the kinks out today. Have a lovely weekend, everyone. _

* * *

**Chapter 12: And I Kind Of Like It**

_Previously…_

_"Sounds like we have a deal," he says, his voice, his whole face, flirting with much needed humor. He cannot help but love this woman with all his heart, even when he tries not to. But then she has admitted to the same. They are not so different after all._

_Kate laughs, sniffing to cover the small sob of relief that threatens to escape her throat. "Should we shake on it?"_

_"We could, or—" Castle's eyes twinkle._

_"Or?" teases Kate, with a hopeful lift of her eyebrows, as a smile breaks out over her face to mirror the one warming her partner's eyes._

_Castle's attention lingers on her lips for a second, before his gaze travels back up to meet hers, warming her cheeks as he goes. "I could kiss you," he suggests, tentatively, reaching out to tuck a curl behind her ear._

_"Mm," she grins, considering, "...or I could kissyou."_

_"Seriously?" laughs Castle. "You're gonna argue about that too?"_

_Kate shakes her head, still smiling as tears run down her face. "No," she whispers hoarsely, squeezing his hand. "Please…would you just hold me?"_

* * *

Castle stands, gently lifting Kate by her elbows from her kneeling position on the floor as he does so, until they are both standing upright facing one another, toe to toe. She's still in her bare feet, so the height difference between them is more pronounced than usual – he has a good five inches on her with his shoes on. He lets go of her elbows, skating his hands down the back of her forearms until they are holding hands, and then he drops his head forward so that their foreheads eventually come to touch. They sway slightly, blinking, breathing, regarding one another at this new proximity, basking in the overwhelming feeling of finally being able to get this close to one another; closer than Kate can ever remember, ruse kisses aside.

Finally, Castle eases back a little, and then he stoops down to kiss the swell of her cheekbone, marveling as her eyelids drift closed beneath this gentle, loving touch, marveling that he is able to be this intimate with her at all. He wipes a lingering tear track off her cheek with his thumb, restoring her perfection.

"This is it, Kate," he whispers, moving across to kiss her other cheek. "No backing out now."

Kate slides her fingers across his palms, flexing them until she can interlock them with his own, weaving them together. "I don't want out, Castle," she whispers, reaching up to place a kiss just to the side of his mouth. "I want in," she promises, gently brushing her full lower lip across his.

She feels him tighten his grip on her hands, splaying her fingers even wider with his own, and she surprises herself with the sharp intake of breath that follows the pleasant, sensual invasion of his touch. It's like a metaphor for all the ways he's eased himself into her life, even when she thought she didn't want him there. He seems to know what's good for her, especially when she doesn't, and this is a truth that will take some getting used to even now for a woman as self-reliant and in control of her life as Kate Beckett.

She frowns when he lets go of her hands, a word of protest on her lips, but in the next heartbeat she is enveloped in a hug the likes of which she has never experienced before – it's tender and careful, as much as it is fierce and strong, possessive even. She reaches out to slide her arms around his back, her face pillowed against his chest, and, as she listens to his heart pounding beneath her ear, it somehow feels like finally coming home.

Castle kisses the top of her head, and she breathes in his clean, masculine scent, permitting herself feel what it is to be loved by this kind and generous man on a whole new, much more intimate level. They stand like this for a long time, as the sun slowly sets outside the window and the heat finally leaves the day.

* * *

"Hungry?" Castle finally murmurs, startling Kate from her semi-doze.

"Mm," she mumbles back, her eyes heavy with the weight of impending sleep that lurks not too far away.

"Come on," he chuckles, releasing her so that he can tow her off towards the kitchen, hand-in-hand.

"Where are we going?" grumbles Kate, feeling the loss of his body heat immediately, the effect of the cooler air in the larger, more open space of the living room wracking her body with a powerful shiver.

"Food. You hardly ate at lunch."

"You ruined my appetite," she points out, with a sleepy grumble.

"Well, let's see if we can't find it again," he suggests, determined to feed her, as if he were some clucky, Jewish grandmother.

Castle sets Kate down on a stool at the kitchen island and then begins pulling things out of the refrigerator to cobble together a meal.

"You know you don't have to do this," murmurs Kate, leaning on her elbows to watch him move around his kitchen as if it were an adult floor show. "We can order in."

Castle unwittingly exposes the impossibly tan skin of his stomach beneath the hem of his sweater at one point, when he stretches up to reach a high cabinet, and then he manages to display his shapely rear to her every time he bends over to fetch a pan or turn on the oven. Kate stares because she can, because they're knocking down walls and crossing lines, and because he doesn't realize that she's watching him at all.

"And what if I want to cook for you?" he asks, suddenly turning around to look at her, cradling a carton of eggs.

She clears her throat and looks off towards the living room to cover up her own creepy staring. "Then…please, feel free," she replies, with a nonchalant wave of her hand. "We've had a big few days was all I meant. I'm just thinking of you," she adds, watching him root around in a cupboard for a bowl and a whisk.

"Didn't get much sleep," Castle confesses, as he begins cracking eggs into the large glass bowl.

Kate raises her eyebrows. "Yeah, I know how that goes," she agrees. "Tossing and turning—" She pauses when Castle looks at her curiously. "What?"

"Do you want food or not?"

"Food was your idea," she points out, frowning slightly.

"I'm beginning to think it was one of my dumber ones."

_Oh! Her tossing and turning has got him thinking about other ways to spend their time._

"Are you…_flirting_ with me?" she asks, boldly.

"Would you be mad if I was?"

"I think we've been mad enough at each other to last a lifetime. How about we call a truce for a while?"

He nods, and returns to his kitchen duties, becoming lost in thought for a minute.

* * *

"Kate?"

"Mm?" she hums, flicking through a magazine that Alexis has left open on the countertop.

"How is this going to work, do you think?"

"Work?" she asks, closing the pages of the magazine to focus on the important conversation they seem to be starting.

"Yeah, uh…" Castle rubs the back of his neck uneasily. "We work together, _obviously_, and I'd just as soon that continued. But Captain Gates—"

"Castle, aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?" she asks, smirking with enjoyment when his face goes red and he stutters to a halt.

"Hmm?"

"We haven't actually broken any rules here or crossed any lines that I'm aware of."

_Yet_, she thinks, smiling wickedly on the inside.

Castle's face falls, but he easily covers it up. "Right. You're right. Of course, you're right," he chatters nervously, wondering if he's gotten the wrong end of the stick somehow about where the drama and exposition of the past few days was headed.

"But if we _were_…to break a few department rules, I'm pretty sure we could go on working together, just so long as we keep our relationship quiet at the Precinct," suggests Kate, her finger in her mouth, teasing him though she really doesn't mean to.

Castle looks surprised by her suggestion, then a little stunned, and finally something close to encouraged.

"You think you can do that?" asks Kate, watching him carefully place an egg back into the carton.

"Is that what you want?" he asks, keen to clear up any misunderstandings. "I mean, just to be clear here, so I don't go and make a complete fool out of myself."

"What sort of foolishness did you have in mind?" she asks, toying with him now because she can, she hopes. Now that they're past the worst of everything: the yelling and the hurt, the clawing and the pain.

Castle looks embarrassed, maybe even speechless for once, and Kate finds his sudden lack of suave adorable.

He coughs and reaches for the egg again. It looks dwarfed in the palm of his hand. He lets it rest there for a minute, looking up at her face and then back down at the egg.

"Omelet okay?" he asks eventually, and she can't find it in herself to be disappointed. This is a process they're working through. Slow and steady will win this race.

"Perfect. Oh, and I'll have mine _without_ a side of eggshell, if you don't mind," she throws at him, arching her eyebrow, pointing out his lack of attention to the bowl.

He grins at her, realizing what she's trying to do. "Nothing but the best for you, Detective," he murmurs, glancing up at her again and then finally focusing on the task at hand to the exclusion of everything else.

* * *

They eat in front of the TV, the pair of them sitting side-by-side on his sofa, plates of food on their knees, a glass of wine on the coffee table in front of them. It's really nice, companionable. When they break out of the moment, back into self-awareness, it is a little awkward, a little new. But then every relationship begins like this – especially those that grow from a work partnership, into a friendship and eventually love. That's what Kate tells herself anyway.

When she finishes eating, she places her plate on the table and picks up her wine glass, swirling the pale liquid around and around. Castle finishes soon after her and he rises to take their dirty dishes off to the kitchen. She watches him go, his broad back and shoulders, narrower waist, the cling of his jeans and the soft mold of his sweater around the swell of his impressive biceps. She wants to touch that sweater again. She _needs_ to touch that sweater.

It's getting late. When she arrived here this evening after seeing her dad, she had no plan greater than sharing with Castle the clarity she'd gained since she ran out on him at the restaurant and offering up the new apologies she knew she owed him. That fire, that urgent immediacy, has burnt itself out over the last few hours, subsiding to a warm glow that leaves her in need of further bravery, if they are to make anymore of today.

He sits back down beside her, leaving a good few inches of space between them, and the TV flickers on in front of them; moving images, changing colors, the sound turned down so low she has no idea what anyone is saying. It's just wallpaper at this point; a distraction, something in the background to stop them feeling so alone…with one another.

They don't know how to do this yet, she suspects. All the battling, the finding courage, the scrapping and yelling, lies, recriminations, and, finally, the honest to god truths; these things have obscured what set them on this path in the first place – that they have something precious here, between them. That they share a deep love and respect for one another, not to mention a physical attraction that could set the room alight most days.

She can feel him being tentative with her, careful not to push as always, despite the open house she turned her heart into over the last few hours.

So she decides to help herself by helping them both again. She edges closer to him on the sofa, her wineglass in hand, and when their thighs touch, she ignores his look of surprise, the sudden stiffening of his posture, and she tips into him, resting her head on his shoulder, curling her legs up onto the sofa cushions by her side.

* * *

"I barely know anyone on this show anymore," remarks Kate, indicating the TV they are both staring at, for want of a better subject matter.

"You don't watch SNL?" asks Castle, with mild surprise.

"No, that's my point. Last summer, I got into the habit of going to bed early, so I've kind of lost touch."

Kate frowns, realizing too late that her stab at casual conversation has just led them down at awkward conversational cul-de-sac towards bedtimes and the like.

Castle's arm has somehow slipped its way around her shoulders and she's comfortably tucked into his side. But if one of them says, _'So, this is nice'_ she swears she will scream.

"Tired?" he finally asks, when she yawns for the third time in so many minutes.

"Big day," she mumbles, through another cat-like stretch that forces him to loosen his arm from around her shoulders to give her room to shiver and shake as her muscles tense and release.

"You…you have plans for tomorrow?" he asks, cautiously, once they both settle back into their little huddle, getting a little more comfortable and a little less awkward each time one of them has to move – he tops up their wine, she visits the bathroom, they both head for the refrigerator to pick and choose their way through various flavors of ice cream.

"I usually meet my dad for brunch on Sunday—"

"Oh, sure. Of course," he quickly replies, as if he's supposed to know. Supposed to know everything about her life, in work and outside. As if he's forgotten and he's embarrassed, like it shows him to be lacking somehow.

"But…" She hesitates, reaching for his hand and placing it flat on her thigh.

Castle waits for the thing he thinks is coming – an invitation to join Kate and her dad for brunch. He'd go, of course. He'd go if she asks. But he wonders if it's still too soon to expose whatever they are becoming to the public glare before they're really ready. Before they've talked about what and how and…yeah. Especially in front of her dad, who scares him a little, if he's honest.

"Since I saw him today," she shrugs. "We're taking a rain check on brunch until next weekend. So I'm free tomorrow."

* * *

Seth Rogan disappears off the screen with some crazy salute and the local WNBC news channel comes on, indicating that it's already eleven o'clock. They're hitting another crossroads. Kate has no idea whether Castle expects her to stay or whether they're taking this shift in their relationship more gradually.

"Kate?" he asks, when she lets her mind wander and her hands do their own thing apparently, because she's caressing his palm without even realizing it, round and round in a figure eight.

"Mm?" she hums, fingers coming to rest over his lifeline when she notices what she's been doing.

"I don't really know how to ask this," he admits, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair.

They've been through such a lot to get to this moment. But somehow asking for things, clarifying, they're still tainted with the expectations of old – that she will force a denial on both of them, that he won't have the courage to push, or that they will both remain complicit in their subtextual pact, letting the dust settle on today, and the sun rise on tomorrow, leaving them no further forward.

Kate tries to help. She turns so that her knees are resting on top of his closest thigh and she looks up at him. "Maybe just…say whatever it is you want to say, Castle. I won't bite," she promises, with a wan, tired smile.

"Are we really doing this now?" he asks her, his face troubled by uncertainty, eyes darkened by mistrust.

The look on his face is what gets to her most – stabs her in the heart - all the things she's done to break him down to the point where he can't ask for the one thing they both know he wants. The one thing they both want.

She smiles at him, making the curve of her mouth as gentle as she can. Tipping over into passion the very first time comes far easier from a place of anger or surprise, a place of loud noise, heightened emotion and raging desire. Where they are now is so quiet, but unfamiliar. Yelling and then getting right down to it would have been a better way to go, she's fairly certain. But they are where they are, so…

* * *

"We don't have to do anything tonight. I can go home. It's not a big deal," she promises, taking hold of his hand and giving it a squeeze. "We're working on no sleep, Castle, and through a lot of home truths. It'll take some time."

"Is that what you want? To go home?"

"I want you to tell me what you want. Honestly. You're not going to scare me off or—" She shakes her head, looking down at their hands, somehow tangled together and then back up into his eyes.

When he doesn't say anything more, she leans in, kisses him on the cheek, lingering close for a few extra seconds to prolong the moment, and then she stands reluctantly, slipping her sandals on and reaching for her bag.

"I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can meet up. Get a bite to eat or something," she offers lightly, though inside she is shriveling under the weight of their combined inadequacies, his and hers.

She pauses by the front door, her hand on the handle for a last look back, and then she opens it, leaving the loft with a sad wave goodnight.

The elevator doors slide open immediately, as if the car has been right there waiting for her all night, anticipating her personal failure, ready and willing to carry her back to her old, safe life, where she keeps her feelings bottled up and doesn't have to risk her heart.

As she hits the button marked 'L' for lobby, she's vaguely aware of a skid, a click, and then the louder sound of running feet out in the hallway. His hand slams between the closing elevator doors, hauling them back open, and then his head appears, unruly dark hair and a serious but hopeful look on his face.

"Kate, what I want—" He takes a deep breath. "I'd really like you to stay."

_TBC..._


	13. Chapter 13 - I Made My Bed

_A/C: Sorry this has been delayed and thank you for all your get well messages. Finally on the mend. :)_

* * *

**Chapter 13: I Made My Bed**

_Previously…_

_"We don't have to do anything tonight. I can go home. It's not a big deal," she promises, taking hold of his hand and giving it a squeeze. "We're working on no sleep, Castle, and through a lot of home truths. It'll take some time."_

_"Is that what you want? To go home?"_

_"I want you to tell me what you want. Honestly. You're not going to scare me off or—" She shakes her head, looking down at their hands, somehow tangled together and then back up into his eyes._

_When he doesn't say anything more, she leans in, kisses him on the cheek, lingering close for a few extra seconds to prolong the moment, and then she stands reluctantly, slipping her sandals on and reaching for her bag._

_"I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can meet up. Get a bite to eat or something," she offers lightly, though inside she is shriveling under the weight of their combined inadequacies, his and hers._

_She pauses by the front door, her hand on the handle for a last look back, and then she opens it, leaving the loft with a sad wave goodnight._

_The elevator doors slide open immediately, as if the car has been right there waiting for her all night, anticipating her personal failure, ready and willing to carry her back to her old, safe life, where she keeps her feelings bottled up and doesn't have to risk her heart._

_As she hits the button marked 'L' for lobby, she's vaguely aware of a skid, a click, and then the louder sound of running feet out in the hallway. His hand slams between the closing elevator doors, hauling them back open, and then his head appears, unruly dark hair and a serious but hopeful look on his face._

_"Kate, what I want—" He takes a deep breath. "I'd really like you to stay."_

* * *

The light in her eyes is exquisite.

She looks nervous, surprised maybe, but happy, possibly even excited, if he were to really let himself hope.

"Are you sure?"

He holds out his hand to her, his shoulder and hip wedging the elevator doors open. "Come on. It's past your bedtime," he says, taking her hand for the second time tonight and leading her back inside his home.

He closes the front door behind them and locks up for the night, while Kate hovers in the middle of the room, unsure what to do next. Her heart is racing and she's ten different kinds of nervous all of a sudden; chewing on her lip and casting her eyes around the large open plan space while she waits for her partner. She looks as if she's visiting his home for the very first time and doesn't know where to put herself.

Castle turns round to find her loitering, her bag still thrown over her shoulder, looking less than comfortable, and that's when it really hits him - just how new they are at this and how little they know about each other on so many private, personal and more intimate levels, despite four some years and God knows how many hours spent working together.

"Hey," he says gently, coming towards her, "how about you make yourself at home?"

He leans down to brush a kiss to her cheek in passing, thinking it best to give her some space to settle in and find her feet. But Kate responds more warmly, dropping her bag at her feet, she stops him going anywhere with a firm hand to his elbow, immediately winding her arms up around his neck. Castle is momentarily stunned by her gesture, but then he slowly reciprocates, carefully folding her into his arms. He tries to control his breathing, to calm the thundering gallop of his heart, while relishing the novel sensation of their bodies caressing lightly, the gentle pressure at each point where they physically touch. He has dreamed about being able to do this for so long – imagined being this close to her with every visual, visceral, intellectual and creative cell in his brain – and now that he is, it almost doesn't seem real.

Kate surprises him again when she dips her head to place a soft kiss in the hollow below his throat, pressing her lips against his bare skin right where it disappears beneath the vee of his sweater. "I've wanted to do that all day," she tells him, with a bashful grin.

Her actions catch Castle off-guard and he chuckles in surprise, amazed at how open Kate Beckett can be when she has something she wants to share. But when she settles in against him, her hands fist fiercely in the back of his sweater for a second, as if she's fighting some inner demon by the way she clings to him, and he holds her more tightly, hoping she feels reassured that whatever is in her head isn't real or can at least be overcome.

When he finally eases apart from her, once her muscles loosen and her hands relax, she drags her eyes up to meet his, their mossy hazel-green turned dark and stormy. "Sorry. This is a lot to process," she murmurs, warily watching his face.

Castle brushes her hair off her cheek and carefully tucks it behind her ear. "Tired yet?" he asks, lifting his eyebrows with a slight air of suggestion to ease the tension and uncertainty swirling around them as they sway on the spot.

"Is that an invitation?" she responds, just a hint of tease playing around the corners of her mouth.

"Kate, you have to know by now that you do not need an invitation to my bed…or anywhere else for that matter."

"Good," she nods, looking down, smiling shyly. "Just thought I'd check."

"Why don't you go on in? I'll get us some water," he suggests, ever the hospitable host, just like his mother.

Oh wait! _His mother?_

"Eh, Castle, is Martha coming home tonight?" she asks, feeling her cheeks getting warm at the thought, though they have nothing to feel uncomfortable about. This is his home and is mother is the most broad-minded sixty-something she has ever encountered.

He pauses halfway to the kitchen to answer her. "I try not to keep track," he admits, with a wince and a shiver of disgust. "Ask my mother for details and she's likely to tell you _everything!"_ he advises, making an unpleasant face. "Classic over-sharer," he throws over his shoulder, before burying his head in the refrigerator.

"At least now I know where _you _get it from," retorts Kate, squealing in surprise when he quickly turns around and makes to chase after her.

* * *

Kate steps inside Castle's bedroom and stops. Never having been here before, all she can do is stare, take in every little detail, absorbing all the information his private space immediately gives up about who he really is. It's so masculine. From the color scheme, which is a rich, dark, woody mahogany for the most part, to the art on the walls: giant, black and white photographs of a bull elephant and a roaring lion. And because this is Richard Castle we're talking about, all of the finishes are luxurious – thick rugs on the floor, a huge, sinful looking bed with a dark brown padded leather headboard and a pile of pillows so deep she could lose herself in them and never come out again.

She's still standing near the doorway, staring, when Castle appears behind her carrying a couple of glasses of some kind of nightcap. He has two small bottles of water jammed into the front pockets of his jeans, like a cowboy in a quick draw contest, and it makes him look so damn domesticated it's ridiculous, and yet it's an inexplicable turn-on for Kate: this strong, capable, house-husband side to him. She would never have put that on her list of desirables in a man before, but somehow, with Castle's unique blend of strengths, this softer side to him does it for her too.

"You okay?" he asks, eyeing her with concern. She hasn't moved since she came into the bedroom, and with her bag still over her shoulder, it makes it look as if she doesn't plan on staying.

"Yeah," she nods, turning to face him. She eyes the two glasses of what turns out to be sweet wine: a pretty expensive, topaz-colored, Tokaji, and then she turns away again.

Castle heads over to the dresser by the wall and places the glasses down carefully, along with the bottled water, and then he returns to her side.

"Look, Kate…I know this is new. But it won't always be this strange. I promise," he tells her, taking her bag from her shoulder and placing it on the floor at the bottom of the enormous bed.

Kate shakes her head and leans back against him, shivering slightly when he wraps his arms around her from behind as she rests against his chest. "Don't rush to make it old, Castle. O_rdinary._ We've both waited a long time for this. Let's just enjoy the process, hmm?"

She feels him nod, his head now alongside hers, his chin coming to rest in the curve of her shoulder. He's a great cuddler, she's learning pretty fast. Those muscular arms and that broad chest make for a pretty amazing refuge, since he's large and welcoming, warm and tender, and all hers it would appear.

"I always thought we'd be better at this," she sighs, turning her head to look up at him.

"Beckett, we're not exactly…_bombing_ here," he points out, flexing his fingers on her ribs so that it tickles a little and she squirms.

"Could have fooled me. If the guys could see us right now they'd have a field day."

"_Seriously?_ I get you into my bedroom for the first time and you're thinking about Ryan and Esposito?"

Kate shakes her head and then turns to bury her face against his shoulder. He wraps her arms around her, using his hand to stroke up and down her spine. "I'm…God, I don't know what I'm doing, what I'm saying. I'm just so damn—" she shrugs, at a loss for words now that's she's poured out every ounce of truth she owes him. "This is strange, that's all" she admits, blowing out a breath.

Castle chuckles, continuing to sooth her with his patient touch, amused by this softer, less certain side to his partner.

She pushes off him a little, reaching up to lightly punch his arm for emphasis, while keeping her eyes hidden beneath her hair. "And if you say _anything_ that sounds anywhere close to _'don't worry, it's just like riding a bike'_, I swear to God, Castle, I will—"

"Okay, okay! No bikes, I promise," he laughs, the sound reverberating through her body, sending pleasant ripples and vibrations out across her skin.

* * *

There's a beat of heavy silence before Castle speaks again, his voice pitched low and mischievous. "Did I just hear you say you always thought we'd be better at this?"

"Mm," she hums, twisting in his arms to look out at the bedroom again, so that the back of her head is pillowed against his shoulder.

"So…that means you've _thought_ about it," he points out, smugly, dropping his hands to her hips, sliding his thumbs through the belt loops of her jeans and tugging.

Kate can hear him crowing with satisfaction, even if she can't exactly see him. "Like you haven't?" she counters.

"Might have," he offers, noncommittally.

"_Might—?_ _Liar!_" she snorts, derisively.

"Okay, okay, you got me. I might have had one or two thoughts about us…_doing_ this someday."

Kate laughs. "Doing this?" she parrots, nudging Castle with her elbow. "Listen to us. _Disaster_," she mutters, shaking her head.

He lets her go and slowly turns her round by the shoulders. Once she's facing him, he gently tips her chin up so that she's looking at him. "Hey? We've torn each other to pieces over the last few days, Kate. I'm exhausted, and I'm pretty sure you're exhausted too. Why don't we just get some sleep? I'm sure you'll feel better in the morning."

Kate nods. She's still disappointed with herself. She thought their relationship would develop so easily, would flow, once she opened up and gave away all her secrets. But turns out Castle is much more of a gentleman than she ever gave him credit for, and she's so used to holding herself back from this that it's taking longer to transition from partners to lovers than she anticipated. Her head is a mess, so many busy thoughts competing. She's wondering what's on that flash drive, wondering who this mysterious Mr. Smith is, wondering how long before the other shoe drops and this brief period of happiness is ripped away from them.

* * *

Castle finds her a t-shirt - one of his own - and since it's so big it's going to drown her to mid-thigh, she tells him that she can sleep in her own underwear, rather than have a pair of his silk boxer shorts slipping off her hips and tripping her up if she has to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

He winks at her. "Nice mental image, Beckett. Thanks for that."

She flicks and snaps the t-shirt so that it hits him on the ass as he heads back over to the dresser to find some sleep attire of his own, and he barks out a laugh of surprise, quickly scooting out of range. She's glad that for all the stress and the nerves, all the newness and the awkward moments, they can still at least have fun. They can still be the best versions of themselves that their partnership conspires to bring out in them...most of the time.

Castle leaves then to go upstairs to Alexis' bathroom to find Kate some basic toiletries – make-up remover, a tub of moisturizer, and a spare toothbrush. Because his daughter is an only child, she has been in the habit of having friends over to stay from a young age, and so she usually has a few extra cosmetic items stashed in her bathroom for emergencies.

* * *

While Castle is upstairs, Kate begins to get ready for bed. The grey tee her partner has given her to wear is a Henley and Kate undoes all the buttons on the front before attempting to pull it over her head. She unbuttons her own white shirt slowly, her mind wandering as she looks around the bedroom while her fingers make light work of her clothing. She lays the shirt on a chair in the corner of the room and then begins to remove her jeans. Lethargy makes her limbs heavy, slowing her progress, and she sways on her feet a little.

The last few days have bruised them both. Revealing the truths they've kept hidden from one another is cleansing in some ways, but undermining in others. It leads to questions like, '_what else don't I know_', '_how well do I really know this person'_ and '_what about the future, how can I be sure will we share everything then'_?

She unhooks her bra and drops it onto the chair with the rest of her things and then slips Castle's shirt over her head, pushing the sleeves up to elbow height. The soft cotton caresses her skin and she hugs it to her for a second, before easing the hem down over her bottom and thighs. It's as long and loose on her as she anticipated it would be, but it smells so perfectly of him that she'd wear it even if it were threadbare and had holes in it just so that she could feel this close to him.

The feeling of closeness she is experiencing right now, standing in her partner's bedroom, wearing his clothes, with the scent of him surrounding her, takes her straight back to the contrast of her summer spent recovering Upstate alone. It causes a tightness in her throat when she recalls the day she woke up in her dad's cabin unable to '_hear'_ Castle's voice in her head at will anymore or even remember how he smelled. That was her lowest point, one that frightened her back to the city faster than anything, before he could fade any further from her life or her memory.

* * *

Once she's dressed for bed, she wanders into the en suite to wash her hands, and that's where Castle finds her - standing in front of the sink, leaning forward slightly, her fingers layered with fragrant soapy suds as she lathers them beneath the running faucet. He stops in the doorway with an armful of products clasped to his chest to watch her. Kate doesn't hear him approach over the sound of running water, but somehow she still senses that he is there.

When she looks up into the mirror, she sees his reflection staring back at her, a look of surprise, confusion and unhidden need on his face.

"Hey," she smiles, reaching for a towel and turning to face him as she dries her hands.

"Uh…yeah," coughs Castle, to cover his reaction to finding her half-dressed in his bathroom. "So, I raided Alexis' stash and managed to find you a new toothbrush and some other things I thought you might need."

Kate hangs up the small hand towel and relieves Castle of the items he's brought downstairs. "Thanks," she smiles, shyly.

He lingers in the doorway, watching her. Kate puts the items down on the vanity and turns back to face him. The air is suddenly too warm, too still, it crackles between them, electrified. They've come so far, and yet they're not where they ultimately hope to be. Bridging that final gap is more proving more tricky than either of them ever anticipated. They are not used to asking one another for the things they want; the language is missing, the shortcuts still unformed, and it shows tonight most of all.

* * *

Kate's loose shirt has slipped off one shoulder and Castle can't take his eyes off her bare skin. So much smooth, bare skin. More than that, his gaze keeps being drawn to the center of her chest, between her breasts, where the deep opening in the unbuttoned Henley is low enough to partially reveal her scar to him for the first time.

Kate sees him staring, and she looks down to see what he's looking at, and then she gets it – the look on his face that spells out all the hurt of a year ago, when she hid herself away from him, cutting him out of her recovery, robbing him of the chance to see her heal and grow stronger, robbing him of the chance to help her and to heal alongside her.

"You can touch…if you want," she says quietly, watching his face color with guilt when he realizes that he's been caught staring.

Castle stands stock still, so she takes a step towards him and holds out her hand. She nods, the faintest of smiles warming her face. "It's okay. I don't mind," she tells him, and he lets her take hold of his hand and guide his fingers to her bare skin.

Kate looks down, watching as she holds his hand gently in place, the very tips of his fingers just glancing off the healed entry wound. After a few seconds she lets go of his hand, allowing him to touch the scar for himself as he pleases. Her heart thunders beneath her ribs, and a light flush spreads up over the skin of her chest and neck.

He's so gentle and reverent, caressing the faded mark with the soft edge of his thumb. Then he suddenly looks at her face again, guilt-stricken and pained, and she watches as he shuts down, halting whatever progress he had just begun to make. He drops his hands to his sides and takes a step back.

"I'll…leave you to finish up in here," he says, backing out into the bedroom. "If there's anything else you need, just…" He waves a hand at the vanity with its many cupboards and drawers down below. "Just help yourself," he says, turning and leaving the room.

* * *

Kate collapses back against the countertop, hanging her head. Eventually, she turns to the sink, brushes her teeth, looking in the mirror when she's finished. She touches her own scar, right where Castle touched it. She can still feel the phantom burn of his fingertips against her skin, the bitter taste of regret sharp on her tongue.

There's still so much hurt there, so much pain to overcome, and though time has passed and they have grown closer again, memories surge to the surface as they confront the fallout of the honesty they've finally shared. And in some ways it's like going through the healing process all over again, only this time they're doing it together.

She steals herself for a second and then she leaves the safety of the bathroom to confront where they are now.

"You know this is healed, right? I'm all better now," she tells Castle, finding him sitting on the edge of the bed with his head bowed and his hands pressed between his thighs. He's still dressed.

He looks up, glancing sideways at her where she stands a few feet away from him, gorgeous long legs stretching up from perfect bare feet until they disappear beneath the hem of his shirt.

He nods, but doesn't say anything.

"Rick, say something, please?" she asks, biting her lip.

She thinks he sees her as damaged, with a scar between her breasts and another, larger, uglier one he has still to see cutting a swathe across her ribs.

He thinks he is still partially responsible for her injury, for her almost dying. Both of them are wrong.

"I'm sorry," is all he can summon. He shakes his head, looking at the floor. "I'm so sorry, Kate."

Kate frowns. "Wait a minute. What are you saying? What exactly are you apologizing for?"

He looks up at her again, eyes forlorn, dulled by guilt and sorrow, radiating the apology he's just offered her. Then his gaze slowly drops back down to the partially obscured scar between her breasts.

"_This?_" asks Kate, coming closer, roughly tugging the shirt down so that her scar is fully visible. "Castle, we've been through this. It's…it's just part of our history," she tries to assure him.

"No…no, we were _apart_ for most of that," he insists, with a flare of such pain in his eyes.

Kate sits down on the edge of the bed beside him and lays a hand on his arm. "You were there for the only part that mattered. I held _on_ because of _you_. And if I could go back in time and change things, I would. You _know_ that."

"I just…I—" He's floundering.

"Castle, look at me."

He turns his head, but keeps his gaze lowered.

"We can't change the past. Nobody can. We've both made mistakes that have hurt each other. The only way we can stop that happening from now on is to look forward. Believe me, I have spent half a lifetime looking back, wondering what if… It changes nothing. It just leads to frustration and disappointment, and worse than that…looking back makes you miss what's right in front of you."

Castle lays his hand on her bare knee. His large palm and fingers swamp her thigh. He smooths his thumb over her patella, circling round and round the flat ridge of bone, watching the slow, gentle movement as he does so. His touch, the repetition, it's hypnotic.

Kate watches him too – how carefully he touches her, how reverently. And it's such a change, such a departure from the brash, playboy millionaire she met all those years ago. A man she had no idea would become her best friend and the man she would fall in love with, a man she had no idea she would come to trust with her darkest secrets, to trust with her life.

"I don't want to miss out on another second of this, what we can be together if we try. Do you?" she asks, quietly.

Castle finally looks up at her, still a little melancholy around the edges as he nudges her shoulder with his own.

"Get into bed. I'll join you in a minute," he tells her, with a departing squeeze of her hand, before he stands and heads off to the bathroom to perform his own nighttime ritual.

_TBC..._


	14. Chapter 14 - And I Sleep Like A Baby

_A/N: Thank you for reading._

* * *

**Chapter 14: And I Sleep Like A Baby**

_Previously…_

_"You know this is healed, right? I'm all better now," she tells Castle, finding him sitting on the edge of the bed with his head bowed and his hands pressed between his thighs. He's still dressed._

_He looks up, glancing sideways at her where she stands a few feet away from him, gorgeous long legs stretching up from perfect bare feet until they disappear beneath the hem of his shirt._

_He nods, but doesn't say anything._

_"Rick, say something, please?" she asks, biting her lip._

_She thinks he sees her as damaged, with a scar between her breasts and another, larger, uglier one he has still to see cutting a swathe across her ribs._

_He thinks he is still partially responsible for her injury, for her almost dying. Both of them are wrong._

_"I'm sorry," is all he can summon. He shakes his head, looking at the floor. "I'm so sorry, Kate."_

_Kate frowns. "Wait a minute. What are you saying? What exactly are you apologizing for?"_

_He looks up at her again, eyes forlorn, dulled by guilt and sorrow, radiating the apology he's just offered her. Then his gaze slowly drops back down to the partially obscured scar between her breasts._

_"__This?__" asks Kate, coming closer, roughly tugging the shirt down so that her scar is fully visible. "Castle, we've been through this. It's…it's just part of our history," she tries to assure him._

_"No…no, we were __apart __for most of that," he insists, with a flare of such pain in his eyes._

_Kate sits down on the edge of the bed beside him and lays a hand on his arm. "You were there for the only part that mattered. I held __on __because of __you__. And if I could go back in time and change things, I would. You __know __that."_

_"I just…I—" He's floundering._

_"Castle, look at me."_

_He turns his head, but keeps his gaze lowered._

_"We can't change the past. Nobody can. We've both made mistakes that have hurt each other. The only way we can stop that happening from now on is to look forward. Believe me, I have spent half a lifetime looking back, wondering what if… It changes nothing. It just leads to frustration and disappointment, and worse than that…looking back makes you miss what's right in front of you."_

_Castle lays his hand on her bare knee. His large palm and fingers swamp her thigh. He smooths his thumb over her patella, circling round and round the flat ridge of bone, watching the slow, gentle movement as he does so. His touch, the repetition, it's hypnotic._

_Kate watches him too – how carefully he touches her, how reverently. And it's such a change, such a departure from the brash, playboy millionaire she met all those years ago. A man she had no idea would become her best friend and the man she would fall in love with, a man she had no idea she would come to trust with her darkest secrets, to trust with her life._

_"I don't want to miss out on another second of this, what we can be together if we try. Do you?" she asks, quietly._

_Castle finally looks up at her, still a little melancholy around the edges as he nudges her shoulder with his own._

_"Get into bed. I'll join you in a minute," he tells her, with a departing squeeze of her hand, before he stands and heads off to the bathroom to perform his own nighttime ritual._

* * *

Kate surveys the bed with her hands on her hips. The butt shaped dent Castle made in the comforter is on the right hand side. His watch lies on the nightstand on that side too. So it doesn't take any of her mad Detective skills to figure out which side of the bed she should therefore be climbing into. She looks around for something to read while she waits for him. This is so far beyond awkward – too much talking and not enough action, she suspects. They are where they are, but all the awkward moments are making her antsy, and she needs something to read to take her mind off the man on the other side of the bathroom door.

She finds a copy of _Scientific American_ lying open on the dresser, pages folded back in an untidy curl around the spine. It's a special collectors edition…on Dinosaurs! She grins, looking down at the page her partner has ceased open: _'Wild Beluga Whales Pass Hearing Test'_. She shakes her head in amusement as she takes the magazine to bed with her while Castle finishes flossing…or whatever he's currently doing in there.

There's a large candle, a hollow melted into its core, sitting on the nightstand on what will be 'her' side of the bed. Kate stares it down for a second. Firstly, because she's not sure what message she'd be sending out by lighting it, and secondly, because she's suddenly wondering who it was lit for last – what romantic interlude her partner might have engaged in, and with whom, that would require the help of candlelight in his bedroom to stage the scene.

She squares her shoulders, blows out a breath and reaches for the small box of restaurant matches lying beside the candle. They both have pasts. There is no getting around that fact when you reach their age and stage in life. They've pretty much lived out their lives in front of one another for the last four years anyway, so it's not as if there are many surprises left lurking beneath the surface. She had just assumed Castle had remained single since he broke up with Gina. But he's a desirable guy in so many ways – fun to be with, handsome, sexy, a good conversationalist, well-informed, kind, and rich; a real catch if you're most women. A stab of jealous burns in her chest as she strikes the match and it flares to life. She holds it to the charred wick of the candle until it catches and then she blows out the match, carefully placing it on the dish the candle sits in.

She left Castle to assume she spent all those weeks of her recovery, all that time that she abandoned him, alone with Josh. He assumed that she _chose_ Josh over _him_. If the roles had been reversed, would she have forgiven him so easily? She knows the answer, she just doesn't want to confront it right now. So she goes to the dresser and she brings the two glasses of sweet wine over, along with the bottles of water, and then she prepares to get into bed.

The comforter is thick and heavy, and she folds it down along with the sheet below, and slides beneath both, feeling the cool, sinful, luxurious glide of fine linen against her bare legs as she slides them all the way down the bed. The mattress is firm, the pillows plentiful, and she settles in comfortably to wait for him.

The issue of her scar was a little uncomfortable. But she's known for a long time that it would be a source of fascination for him. He never got a chance to see it after she was shot, and if the magazine she's currently holding proves anything, her partner is a man of many fascinations, mostly for the weird, the strange and the absurd. So a healed bullet wound, no matter that this is her body we're talking about, would always be a source of curiosity to him. She's pretty comfortable in her own skin, always has been, secure in her physical strength and her ability to turn the head of any man she chose to target, so she quickly lets it go.

* * *

Kate is halfway down a _'Fact or Fiction'_ article entitled: _'People Swallow 8 Spiders A Year While They Sleep'_, when she finally hears the bathroom light click off and the door creak open.

Castle emerges from the en suite still wearing his jeans and the pale blue cashmere sweater from earlier. The shirt he intends sleeping in lies folded at the bottom of the bed, ensuring a floorshow of a kind is about to take place for which Kate has a front row seat. She squirms slightly, trying to look casual and relaxed in her partner's bed, wondering why she hadn't just grabbed him and kissed him senseless earlier when she had the chance to ease some of the uncomfortable tension that's been building between them ever since.

Castle stops just inside the bedroom to admire Kate Beckett in his bed; one of his shirts falling off her shoulder, her hair loose, her knees drawn up to her chest as she pretends to read something.

It's a magnificent sight, and he stands there taking mental snapshots of the scene, while wondering how something so awful as finding out that she lied to him for months could have ended up leading to a conclusion so wonderful, even if he is feeling more than a little out of his depth after that speech about her scar. He feels like an insensitive idiot for drawing attention to it at all. Not his smoothest moment ever, and with the one woman he's literally been trying to seduce for years. He could smack himself. Time to make amends.

Castle clears his throat and Kate's head flies up. "You know, when Alexis was a little girl she had eczema and it used to keep her up at night…not so much the scratching, as her fear that it made her different from her friends."

Kate arches one perfectly plucked eyebrow and sets the magazine aside. "Is that your idea of a bedtime story, Castle, because if it is, I can understand why your daughter couldn't sleep?"

Castle chuckles at Kate's humorous, yet acerbic, remark. "It's my clumsy way of saying I'm sorry if I made you feel anything less than beautiful. Even for a second. These scars…they're a part of you that I'm sure we both wish weren't there. Not because of how they make you look…you're…well, you look perfect to me. But because of the trauma you went through when they happened."

He sits down on the bed beside her, still dressed, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back against the headboard.

Kate looks down at her hands, twisted in the sheets. Until he said it, she didn't think it was important if he saw her differently. Now she knows she was kidding herself if she thought his opinion of her didn't matter more than that of everyone else. "Do you really mean that?" she asks, giving him a shy, sideways glance.

"Well, it's not as if I had to spin you a line to get you into bed," he points out, playfully nudging her shoulder.

Kate lets out a loud guffaw at that, her shoulders shaking, and Castle joins in too when he sees how well she takes the humorous remark. "For that I should get up and go home," she tells him, still laughing.

"Oh, no, please don't," begs Castle, putting on his best little-boy pout.

"You going to sleep like that?" she asks, looking down at his jeans, pale, neatly manicured feet sticking out from the ankles.

"Mm. I'll just get changed," he agrees, easing himself back out of bed, while Kate watches him through lowered lashes; a little revenge after enduring years of his creepy staring.

* * *

He chats to her as he unbuttons his jeans, something funny and inconsequential about his mother, a Bloody Mary and the maître d' at Balthazar, though Kate's too distracted to pay attention properly. She's trying to walk the fine line of watching her partner undress while appearing as if she's _not_ watching her partner undress.

Her game face fails utterly when she hears his jeans hit the bedroom floor in a jarring tinkle of belt buckle, designer denim and loose change. There's nothing she can do to prevent herself from looking up, and he catches her at it, a slightly surprised grin creeping across his face.

"Like what you see, Beckett?" he all but crows, lifting his jeans off the floor to fold them.

Kate rolls her eyes and slowly shakes her head, an unbidden smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Thought as much," Castle adds, making her snigger helplessly. She just can't seem to help herself now her secret is out; no point pretending she doesn't like him anymore. He always could see right through her anyway.

He's wearing sharp navy boxer shorts with a little gold bee motive scattered all over. Kate fights the urge to smile at his underwear by biting the inside of her cheek, giving her face a lopsided look.

"Taking my sweater off now," he warns her, turning away to face the wall, as if modesty were his default position. Modesty has never been a word in Richard Castle's lexicon; it's all for show…or not for show, as it turns out.

"You're an idiot," Kate tell him, shaking her head again, dragging her eyes back down to focus on the magazine, while uncomfortably aware that her partner is shirtless just feet in front of her and all she really, really wants do to is stare until her eyes water and go blurry.

"Last chance, Kate," he sings, lifting the t-shirt off the bed and slowly shaking it loose.

Kate dumps the magazine on the bed and boldly looks up at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"_There_. I'm looking," she tells him, her mouth suddenly watering as she takes in the full magnificence of his muscular torso, his broad shoulders and well-defined biceps. She attempts to be brazen about looking, as if seeing him half-naked does nothing for her. But she fails miserably, because that would mean another lie and they're past that, if they know what's good for them. "Very nice," she adds quietly, giving him a bashful smile of satisfaction.

"There. That wasn't so bad," crows Castle, pulling a Green Lantern t-shirt over his head and finally, sadly, covering up his spectacular body.

"I thought you were tired," hums Kate, smoothing down the pages of the magazine, suddenly not tired in the slightest herself.

"I was thinking of you," he tells her, giving her a long, pointed look, killing it with the quirk of his eyebrow and the twisted smirk of his mouth.

She should wipe that smirk right off his face. "So chivalrous" she purrs instead.

The snipe, snark and tease of this back and forth is welcomingly familiar, and somehow it's helping, even if the things they're joking about go beyond their usual boundaries.

* * *

Castle pads closer to the bed and Kate tries to force her body to relax again. They're spending the night together because he asked her to stay with him, because life is moving on for them, because this is who they are now, even if they are the only two people in on the joke at this point, even if it's still taking a lot of getting used to. She loves him. They'll get there eventually.

He eases back the covers and Kate waits for him, her hands clasped in her lap as the mattress dips when he lowers himself down beside her.

She waits until he's settled, a good thirty seconds of bouncing and fussing and pillow thumping, before she swivels towards him – and how are they even in bed together, like this is some kind of NYPD sponsored sleepover.

"This guy Smith—"

"Oh, come on, _Kate!_" groans Castle, dropping his head into his hands.

"_What?_ I just want to know how much you know about him and when he last contacted you."

Castle turns away from her, the muscles in his back flexing and bunching beneath his t-shirt. He reaches over to turn out the lamp, thumps his pillows hard and then flops onto his side with his back turned to her. "Good night, Beckett. Try to get some sleep."

"You're ignoring me now?" she asks the unmoving curve of his spine, the breadth of his shoulders.

"Trying to."

"But I'm…I mean, we're—"

"_What?_" he snaps in utter frustration.

"I lit a candle," she offers, feebly, trying to make peace.

"To whom? The patron saint of lost causes?"

Kate winces. "Don't be like that."

"Like what? Pissed that the first time we share a bed together the only think you can think to ask me is about _the case_? Hard to not feel used, Beckett."

* * *

Anger flares in Castle as guilt rises in Kate. Then a heavy silence settles between them. Neither of them is up for a fight, but they can't seem to get themselves together long enough to move things forward with any amount of grace or finesse.

Kate turns to her nightstand and reaches for her own glass of sweet wine. The rich, honey-nectar scent has been teasing her senses since she got into bed and she uses it to draw Castle back to a civilized mood again.

"Knowing you, this is something pretty rare and expensive. Shame to see it go to waste," she says, hovering his glass within his eye line.

Castle sighs loudly and flops onto his back. "Only if we drop the other thing until morning?" he bargains, eyeing her suspiciously.

"You have my word. Now drink," she instructs, smiling when he begins to raise himself up again, biceps bulging beneath the sleeves of his t-shirt as he hoists himself back to a sitting position.

This time they do clink glasses, though a quietly muttered _'cheers'_ is all they come up with by way of a toast. The rich, sticky liquid coats Kate's throat and warms her body from the inside out, quickly making her feel loose and slightly more relaxed. The candle's fast burning wick snaps and crackles by her elbow and the flame shimmers, sending dancing shadows out across the ceiling of the bedroom.

"_So_…" he begins, with a languorous drawl, giving her shoulder a gentle nudge.

"Don't joke, Castle. I couldn't handle it right now," she warns him, nerves like tiny champagne bubbles rising inside her stomach, making her feel like a terrified teenager, suddenly alone in an upstairs bedroom at a house party with her first crush, unsure how to make the first move.

'_Make your mind up'_, is what he wants to say. "Wouldn't dream of it," is what comes out instead.

"I—" She sighs, dropping her free hand down on the comforter on her side. "I'm sorry."

"What for?" asks Castle, sipping his wine.

"Lots and lots of things."

"Care to be a little more specific?"

"I've probably said enough," she answers, enigmatically.

"Please tell me there isn't more?" asks Castle, a look of concern in his eyes when she happens to glance his way.

"More what?"

"To apologize for."

"There's always more to apologize for," says Kate, taking another long sip of her wine. "Such is life."

"Spoken like a woman who is weary of relationships."

"No. Spoken like a woman who has let herself and other people down one too many times."

"I think you need to cut yourself a little slack."

"Didn't expect to hear that coming from you."

"Why? You don't see me as the forgiving type?"

"No, the opposite actually. I think you can be a little _too_ forgiving at times." She's thinking of herself. Mainly she's thinking of herself - of all the times she kept him hanging, hurt him in little, undermining ways, knowing it wouldn't stop him coming back for more.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Deep-fried Twinkie," she murmurs, with a purse of her lips.

"_What?_" squawks Castle, angling himself round to face her.

Kate pushes on. "I lit the candle by the bed."

"Yeah, you said. Doesn't seem to be helping the mood any."

"You often light candles when you're…I don't know…_reading_?" she asks, flicking her eyes over towards the guttering flame.

Castle looks lost, confused, like he knows this is a riddle, but for the life of him cannot work it out. "I…I don't light candles when I'm on my own as a rule, no."

"_Oh_," utters Kate, softly, another stab of jealousy arrowing through her. _When he's on his own._

"In fact, the only reason that candle is even there is because of the blackout a couple of weeks ago. Almost broke a toe in the dark trying to find the damn thing, so I figured it might be safer to keep one handy just in case," he explains, watching her face to see if his truthful explanation is the answer she's looking for.

Kate swallows, relief flooding through her. "In case of what?" she asks mechanically, her mind concentrating on certain other things, like his mouth. Lips she knows are soft and a tongue he proved is talented and hungry when they—

"Of another blackout," replies Castle, as if she is stupid or not listening, and right now there's a chance that it's both.

Kate nods. "Blackout. Right," she smiles, too brightly. "Of course."

"Beckett are you okay? You seem a little—"

"Kiss me?" she blurts, breathlessly, twisting away to put her glass down on the nightstand before he can even think to answer.

When she turns back to face him, her cheeks are stained pink, her breathing short and jerky, pupils dilated. Her heart is hammering in her chest and her partner is staring at her as if…well, as if he maybe wants to kiss her too.

"Are you sure?" asks Castle, setting his own glass aside, his eyes never leaving hers.

Kate nods, hypnotized.

_TBC..._


	15. Chapter 15 - No Regrets

_A/N: I know some people have been waiting for a new chapter to this story. I'm not writing much these days, hence the slow speed of updates. I won't apologize for having a life. Suffice to say, I do this for fun, not to get paid. If you're still reading, thank you. _

_I've added a reasonable sized recap from the last chapter to help remind you of where we were..._

* * *

"_The time to go has come and gone_

_Why can't I? Why can't I say goodnight?"_

_**\- Clare Bowen:**__ 'Why Can't I Say Goodnight', Nashville._

* * *

_**Chapter 15: No Regrets**_

_Previously…_

_"You often light candles when you're…I don't know…reading?" she asks, flicking her eyes over towards the guttering flame._

_Castle looks lost, confused, like he knows this is a riddle, but for the life of him cannot work it out. "I…I don't light candles when I'm on my own as a rule, no."_

_"Oh," utters Kate, softly, another stab of jealousy arrowing through her. When he's on his own._

_"In fact, the only reason that candle is even there is because of the blackout a couple of weeks ago. Almost broke a toe in the dark trying to find the damn thing, so I figured it might be safer to keep one handy just in case," he explains, watching her face to see if his truthful explanation is the answer she's looking for._

_Kate swallows, relief flooding through her. "In case of what?" she asks mechanically, her mind concentrating on certain other things, like his mouth. Lips she knows are soft and a tongue he proved is talented and hungry when they—_

_"Of another blackout," replies Castle, as if she is stupid or not listening, and right now there's a chance that it's both._

_Kate nods. "Blackout. Right," she smiles, too brightly. "Of course."_

_"Beckett are you okay? You seem a little—"_

_"Kiss me?" she blurts, breathlessly, twisting away to put her glass down on the nightstand before he can even think to answer._

_When she turns back to face him, her cheeks are stained pink, her breathing short and jerky, pupils dilated. Her heart is hammering in her chest and her partner is staring at her as if…well, as if he maybe wants to kiss her too._

_"Are you sure?" asks Castle, setting his own glass aside, his eyes never leaving hers._

_Kate nods, hypnotized._

* * *

"Let me look at you first?" asks Castle, already reaching out to skim the tips of his fingers featherlight along the hollow of her cheekbone, his thumb tracing the firm, sharp line of her jaw as he goes.

Kate releases a nervous, shaky breath at both his request and his surprising touch, watching her partner go still at the unexpected sound and then pause to regard her with curiosity.

"Castle, you've been staring at me for the past four years," she explains, humor dancing in her eyes.

"A little…uh, _impatient_ there, Beckett?" he points out, with a cheeky grin.

"_Imp—_?" she gasps, indignantly, only to be cut off mid-word.

The next thing she's aware of is sound: hungry, breathy, raw, sloppy, gasping, quiet, dirty sound – sounds of his and hers mingling - and the sweet, sweet sensation of her partner's mouth on hers for the hottest kiss she's ever experienced.

Her eyes slip closed and her lips part around the thick, sensual, demanding intrusion of Castle's tongue - sliding, tasting, _owning_ her. Her pulse is leaping in her neck and she's suddenly far, far too warm, despite his shirt slipping down off her shoulder until it pools somewhere around her left elbow.

Her view of the world shifts all of a sudden as she tilts like a spirit level turned on an angle, the bubble in the center her heart, floating in the liquid fluidity of her own body. The movement is dizzying. A fluttered lift of her lashes gives a sudden glimpse of bedroom ceiling, as Castle gently lowers her onto her pillows. His arms are around her neck and back, supporting, while he looms over her, his pelvis mostly resting on the mattress beside hers. She wants to feel him on top of her, to feel the weight of his body pressing her into the mattress, but yet again, he's being too much of a gentleman; too careful. She'll have to be a little more prescriptive about things from now on, she can see.

* * *

They break for air, chests heaving, hands maintaining a constant, restless, roaming motion over each other's bodies, tugging at clothing and kneading flesh and bone; daring to map long imagined physical landscapes. Kate's hips writhe slowly to some imaginary rhythm beneath her partner's, unable to remain still for an instant. Her nipples have peaked hard beneath Castle's soft cotton shirt, and when she chances a glance downward, the shirt seems more off than on at this point, since she failed to refasten any of the buttons after she pulled it over her head.

Castle catches her looking, tracks his own gaze down in pursuit of her own.

"My shirt looks good on you," he says, with a smirk.

"If you say 'but it'll look better off'…" she smirks back, vaguely threatening, while raising one suggestive eyebrow above her blossoming smile.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replies, leaning in close again, checking for permission with his eyes before he gently kisses her, drawing her into a swirl of blissful sensation as his lips mold and tug and move so perfectly over hers, pulling more and more needful noises from her throat, matching her carnal refrain with one of his own, his fingers sliding across her scalp raising goose bumps all over her skin.

Eventually, he rests his forehead against hers, heart pounding. "Can I confess something?" Castle asks, stroking hair away from her face with his fingertips, his eyes following the movement of his own hands before he looks down at her again.

"You took the spare bra from my locker? I _knew_ it!" jokes Kate, watching with pleasure when Castle's fine appreciation for humor springs easily to his face as he delights in her irreverence.

He collapses on top of her, burying his face in her bare shoulder, and they both shudder through a fit of the giggles, clinging to one another as if they do this all the time.

He shakes his head when they finally stop laughing, signaling that he had something else he wanted to say. His eyes are suddenly misty, though the smile still plays at his lips, making the two features look mismatched for a second. "I thought we'd missed our window," he tells her, watching her face to gauge her reaction.

Kate nods soberly, admitting she thought as much too. "It was starting to look that way. Timing isn't our strong suit."

"Understatement of the year."

Kate nods, not mad in the slightest at the implied criticism, since he's generously sharing in this fault with her - making it theirs - even if she more than slightly tips the balance of blame.

"You think maybe we've fixed it? Broken the hex?" asks Kate, eyes wide and hopeful that he might say yes; yes, they've finally succeeded in getting to the same page in this epic love story they've been writing.

"If—" Castle pauses, considering, his fingertips absently caressing the light coating of hair on her arm.

"_If?_" presses Kate, worry making her insides clench nervously. "If _what?_"

"Maybe, if we can keep communicating…keep talking like we have the last couple of days," he suggests, with a lift of his shoulders.

"Then the hex is broken?" repeats Kate, for the avoidance of doubt, looking for absolute clarity from him on this one point.

Castle laughs and leans in to kiss her forehead in a somewhat fond, almost parental gesture. "You and hexes?" he chuckles, shaking his head. "Never thought I'd hear such talk from the lips of Detective Skeptic Beckett."

"Skeptic Beckett? What is that…some kind of secret nickname?"

"Oh, no. No, we have none of those," denies Castle, emphatically shaking his head. "The boys wouldn't dare and I value my limbs too much," he promises, despite the mischievous smile playing at his lips.

"Hmm," hums Kate, doubtingly, narrowing her eyes at her partner.

* * *

Silence descends on the bedroom once more and they are swallowed up by it, stilted, rendered bashful with one another, not so used to doing this yet that parts of their old selves are unable to creep back into the room to reclaim and reset the natural order of things…or at least the former order of things _before_ he discovered her lie and she his.

Castle clears his throat. "Tired?" he asks, eyebrows shooting skywards as he asks what he simultaneously thinks might be the dumbest question-come-suggestion of his entire adult life.

Kate nods, her reluctance to give in to the draining effect of the emotional stress of the last few days - of fighting for him - evident in the unenthusiastic bob of her head. She's feeling confused too, confused and a little uncertain. Castle's behavior, his care and reluctance, his…she can't quite put her finger on it, but there's definitely something. He's holding back.

They're still snuggled close and Castle draws back a little way at this point. Kate snags his shirt with the hook of her fingers, preventing him from moving away any further. And then they stare at one another with a growing level of wonder at her declarative action. Wonder that they've made it here at all, that they've made it this far.

"Kate. I don't want this to start on a…"

Castle sighs and drops his head forward slightly, clearing his throat and running his fingers through his hair.

Kate waits quietly for him to speak, to say something more, to explain what he's thinking. Eventually she reaches out to slide her hand around the back of his neck, long fingers gently, tenderly caressing the smooth skin at the nape while his head is still bowed forward, looking down at the small gap in the mattress that has opened up between them. He feels warm under her fingers, so alive.

"Castle?" she prompts, tipping her head to one side, and he startles a little, as if he'd mentally slipped free of the room altogether, leaving her here alone.

"I'm still…_mad_, Kate," he tells her, quietly but firmly. "I…I want this so badly…you _so very—_"

He breaks off, clenching his fist, and she watches skin stretch tight over bone, turning his knuckles white and smooth as ivory. "But I'm…I'm still mad. You hurt me. Can you understand?" he asks, raising his eyes to meet her worried, concerned, horrified stare.

She bites her lip when the tears come, welling up in her eyes like fat, solid, traitorous little ghosts. When she nods to show him she understands him perfectly – unable to speak - her lower lip still held hostage between her perfectly white teeth to prevent it from trembling, the tears descend her cheeks like downhill skiers on a black run. They drop from her chin - knees tucked tight into chests, aerodynamic, ambitious little balls - before blooming like black roses on his grey sateen sheets where they land silently.

Kate withdraws her hand from his neck and quietly purses her lips. She never thought for a moment that it would be easy, mostly because she's no good at this herself. But she never expected it to be so hard - to hear the truth of how she hurt him, to face the pain she can see in the tension in his face, how torn and tortured he is by the conflict of wanting and the needing time, by the desire she can feel radiating from every pore, competing with a fierce determination to be respected, to not be a pushover she will end up undervaluing or taking for granted in future. She hates this, but she respects him all the more for making a stand.

"I understand," she replies in a hoarse whisper. "When you're ready…maybe then…I mean I know forgiveness is hard and I'm asking a lot here, but the fact that you're still hurting must mean…"

She pauses, tilting her head again until she can see at least one of his eyes. "I know you still care about me, Castle. We wouldn't be…_here_," she points out, sweeping her hand out to encompass the environs of his bedroom, "if you didn't."

"And I know you care too. That's what makes this so…"

"_Hard?_ Torturous? Stressful?" she offers, feeling some of that, maybe all of that, too.

"You find being with me stressful?" he asks, raising his eyes to observe her closely.

"No, I—look, I just meant that I've made so many mistakes where you're concerned. I've made mistakes with relationships in the past too. It sort of became part of who I am…or so I thought."

"What…what does that mean?" he asks, frowning.

"It's a cop thing. You get a few years in and kind of don't expect relationships to last. Everyone knows it, expects it after a while. Civilians don't understand the job, the pressure, the hours, the risks even. But you…you're different. You're right there with me, Castle, by my side for every 3am body drop, at my back when I have to draw my weapon, keeping me company and driving me crazy through endless hours of mindless paperwork—"

"Don't forget making you bottomless cups of coffee," he interjects, just a tiny spark of humor returning to his eyes.

Kate smiles, her voice softening. "Yeah, that too. My point is, no one has ever been worth fighting for before and _no one_ has ever fought this hard for me," she explains, wrapping her fingers around his forearm and taking long seconds to watch herself make this gesture, this physical connection; breaking down years' long barriers.

"And I thought I was being subtle."

Kate laughs quietly at Castle's wry remark. "I hate to break it to you, partner, but that is one word that is missing from your repertoire."

"_I_ can be subtle," he insists, indignantly.

"Sure," grins Kate, patting his arm.

"I _can!_"

"Okay, so we go into the precinct Monday morning and no one will see any difference between us. Agreed?"

"If that's how you'd prefer it?"

"I think I would."

"Then I will do my subtle best to deliver, Detective."

"Thank you."

* * *

Suddenly they are drift again on that sea of silence that keeps rising up and threatening to swamp them. Kate watches Castle struggle with whatever it is that's holding him back. His reticence emboldens her, and so she's able to take time to observe his body language, his facial expression, his shallow breathing, and then it hits her—

He's scared.

"You're scared. Castle, why are you so scared of this?"

He swallows obviously, his discomfort at being caught out and questioned vividly evident in the way his body tenses all over. "I—"

"Go on. Tell me," she cajoles, with gentle understanding. "We're already past the point of no return here."

Castle's eyebrows shoot up and he levels her with a look. "Not quite."

Kate gives him a serious, unflinching stare in return. She knows he's referring to the fact that they haven't slept together yet. But that fact is academic to her now. She couldn't be in this any deeper if she tried. "Far as I'm concerned we have. So…talk to me. _You_ came after me, Rick. You asked me to stay here tonight. What's bugging you? Have you changed your mind?"

"No! _No_, I—"

"This is me," she tries, attempting to coax him to open up. "Just…tell me."

It doesn't work.

"_Exactly!_ You're Kate Beckett. _The_ Kate Beckett," he stresses, as if that should mean something, should explain everything away.

"Castle, what does that even mean? If anyone should be saying that it's me. You're _The_ Richard Castle, world famous author. I'm just a girl from New York who went off to Stanford with ambitious dreams, and then ended up right back where she started, a graduate of the Police Academy, an NYPD grunt. Let's not turn this into a pissing contest."

"Kate, you were never _'just'_ anything. Girl and woman you have always been extraordinary. I've heard it from your dad, the stories, your determination, independence, from Maddie, and the crazy tales the boys tell from before my time—"

"I'll kill the little traitors."

"I'm scared because I jump in too fast, I fall too hard, I lose myself in every relationship, and then…then I wake up one morning and somehow or other, despite my best efforts, it's all over. Suitcases are packed, jewelry gathered together, they always leave with more than they arrived, every single time, and then I'm alone again." He shrugs. "It's who I am."

"Well, maybe there's more cop in you than we first thought," points out Kate, reaching out to stroke the back of his hand.

* * *

Kate sits up, propping her pillows behind her and urging him to do the same, and then she turns to face him so they can talk properly.

"You're not jumping in too fast, Castle. Not this time. It's taken us four years of circling one another, of getting a measure of each other, to get to this point. We've spent months apart and _still_ we always find our way back to each other. You're angry at me right now because you told me you loved me and I couldn't admit that I heard you or tell you that I loved you back. I'm mad at you because you tried to protect me and I felt betrayed…but mostly scared for you, scared at how vulnerable you made yourself for my sake."

"And I'd do the same thing again," he warns her.

Kate nods, and then she looks down at her own hands. "I know you would."

When she looks up at him again her eyes are shining, burning with a renewed fervor. "Castle, I'm _not_ Meredith and I'm _not_ Gina. You and me together make a different kind of chemistry. Call it alchemy…magic, if you want. Look, I'm not saying I'm not scared too. That's partly why it took me so long to…" she shrugs, because he knows all of this.

"What scares you?" he asks, needing to know the fears that lurk inside her head, if they look in anyway the same shape and color as his.

"The possibility of messing this up and not having you in my life anymore in any form. I was settling, Castle. Taking the safe path because the thought of not seeing you anymore was…well, it's…I don't even want to go there. Not even theoretically."

"Do you think Lanie and Espo had this trouble?"

Kate emits a sudden ripple of surprised laughter at her partner's intentional or unintentionally funny question. "_No!_"

Castle sits chuckling beside her.

"I'm sure she just put on one of her _'Lanie dresses'_, got him drunk, told him what was going to happen next... There would be no more talking after that, believe me," assures Kate, arching one of her eyebrows, knowingly. "If they had a heart-to-heart, I'm sure it came _after_. If you know what I mean?"

"Are we being too serious about this?" he asks, glancing at her.

"No. No, I think we're being…you and me. Cautious, careful, considered, because I think we both want this to become something that's going to last, if that's not overstating it?" she asks, a little shyly.

"Speaking for both of us already, Beckett?" he teases, bumping her shoulder with his own.

Kate grins, her cheeks flushing with a little higher color. "Just getting in a little practice," she replies, boldly.

"I like you like this," he blurts, after a beat or two of easier silence, surprising her with his candor.

"Like what? Running off at the mouth?"

"Open. I want us to talk like this more often, to communicate better. We're too…too careful with one another. I was always scared that if I opened up, you'd run."

"Time was I probably I would have. Not anymore. I'm pretty sure if either of us took off running we'd only end up bumping into one another at some point anyway," she points out, smiling softly.

Castle yawns and Kate is dragged inexorably into mirroring him with an unavoidable yawn of her own.

"Want to sleep on it?"

"I don't need to sleep on any of this. But, yeah, I know what you mean. We should get some rest."

* * *

They settle down for the night. Both rolling onto their sides and facing the same wall. Castle tentatively reaches out a hand and lays it on Kate's waist on top of the comforter. She covers his hand with her own and tugs to show him that she wants him closer. Castle edges across the bed until he is more of less pressed along the length of her back, their knees bent; little facsimiles of one another.

He kisses the bare skin that lies exposed at her shoulder, nudges his nose into her hair to soak her in, and then finally he rests his head down on the pillow.

Kate strokes the ridges of his knuckles with her thumb, rhythmically, where his hand lies heavy on her waist. She feels sleep slowly begin to beckon her away; just a short walk tonight from wakefulness to peaceful oblivion, in contrast to some of the endless, unfruitful route marches she's faced while searching for sleep in the past.

"Hey, Kate?" whispers Castle, just as her eyelids begin to grow impossibly heavy.

"Mmm?" she murmurs, bordering on incoherent.

"Thanks for understanding."

She summons her faculties, dragging herself back up to the surface to respond to him.

"You don't have to thank me for anything, Castle. Least of all that. Now sleep," she whispers gently, laying her cheek on her hand. "Night!"

He could swear he hears her call him '_love'_ as he drifts off with that brand new, champagne fizz of excitement at finally starting this with her racing around his bloodstream and eventually filling his dreams with stunningly vivid color.

_TBC..._


	16. Chapter 16 - I Don't Mind Saying

_A/N: Can I just say thank you so much for still being there, for still engaged with this story despite the delay in updating and the slow pace of progress in the tale itself. I appreciate all of you so much._

* * *

_**Chapter 16: I Don't Mind Saying**_

_Previously…_

_They settle down for the night. Both rolling onto their sides and facing the same wall. Castle tentatively reaches out a hand and lays it on Kate's waist on top of the comforter. She covers his hand with her own and tugs to show him that she wants him closer. Castle edges across the bed until he is more of less pressed along the length of her back, their knees bent; little facsimiles of one another._

_He kisses the bare skin that lies exposed at her shoulder, nudges his nose into her hair to soak her in, and then finally he rests his head down on the pillow._

_Kate strokes the ridges of his knuckles with her thumb, rhythmically, where his hand lies heavy on her waist. She feels sleep slowly begin to beckon her away; just a short walk tonight from wakefulness to peaceful oblivion, in contrast to some of the endless, unfruitful route marches she's faced while searching for sleep in the past._

_"Hey, Kate?" whispers Castle, just as her eyelids begin to grow impossibly heavy._

_"Mmm?" she murmurs, bordering on incoherent._

_"Thanks for understanding."_

_She summons her faculties, dragging herself back up to the surface to respond to him._

_"You don't have to thank me for anything, Castle. Least of all that. Now sleep," she whispers gently, laying her cheek on her hand. "Night!"_

_He could swear he hears her call him '_love'_as he drifts off with that brand new, champagne fizz of excitement at finally starting this with her racing around his bloodstream and eventually filling his dreams with stunningly vivid color._

* * *

For once there is no pre-dawn phone call to shatter the nocturnal silence, no tragic or mundane death-by-misadventure to breech the flimsy wall that exists between waking and sleeping. There are no nightmares to tear themselves out of disturbing clutches before they drown, suffocate or burn. They sleep peacefully, side-by-side, unmoving, as if they have been married for years and long ago perfected the art of sharing a bed.

Nature's sophisticated alarm clock – Kate's own circadian rhythm – is what wakes her. As the light outside morphs from the smudged grey of early dawn to a deeper, bluer blue in the form of slatted shapes creeping out across the bedroom floor from between the wooden blinds, she comes back to herself, to awareness of being, to an acute awareness of _being_ where she now is – in Richard Castle's bed, with his arm possessively draped around her waist, his large hand splayed flat against her stomach. She drifts with this quiet knowledge and her partner surrounding her, for several minutes, a smile of bliss playing at her lips, and then she eases herself from beneath the shelter of his arm to turn over in bed and watch him, unobserved.

His breathing is even and constant, like the relentless, eager rush forward and reluctant retreat of gentle waves rolling onto a sandy beach. He sleeps as if he is without care or troubles to bother him, and Kate hopes that nights are always like this for him – restorative, restful. Because she knows that she has kept him from slumber in the past. Worry, nightmares all of her making - _she_ the star, the victim, the temptress and _he_ the savior, the failure, the seducer… So many stories told by their subconscious minds to manage and muddle through the thoughts they were unable or too reluctant to face while awake; voices kept from speaking up, hearts quietly smothered.

Castle's features are smoothed by the lassitude of sleep: muscles relaxed, every wrinkle and worry line rendered nearly invisible by the untroubled state of his mind as he slumbers on beside Kate, oblivious to her presence save for the most nebulous of memories flitting around his brain that they fell asleep beside one another hours before.

He is quite beautiful, she thinks, as she watches him, though this choice of adjective is not one that will readily find its way from her lips to Castle's ear in a hurry. But the lush, dark head of hair, the strong nose with its slightly crooked profile, the slant of his lips, the shadow of stubble coating his jaw, all of these elements work together to create the charismatic, handsome man that she knows so well, that she loves so deeply it pains her to think of it some days. When her life feels precarious, when the worst that humanity can think to do lands on her desk demanding attention, when she witnesses her friends put in danger to protect others, when she thinks about her mom – a beautiful, worthy life cut short – and her dad… That is when she is most fearful of allowing herself the luxury of his love and of permitting herself to feel everything she knows she is capable of feeling for him in return.

Kate watches over her partner for another minute or so, until a sun-speckled pattern crawls out across the wooden floor, dust motes swirling and sparkling in the growing daylight like miniature glitter balls, and then she smiles, fingers caressing the pillow close to her Castle's cheek – the tender gesture enough for her, yet not so close than it might disturb or wake him.

She eases out of bed, feet bare on the warm wood, and leaves the bedroom to make them coffee, toes flexing to absorb the warmth of the floor beneath her. His cotton shirt gently gazes her thighs as she walks keeping her decent, but still she is glad that they have the loft to themselves this Sunday morning. The last few days have been an endlessly exhausting round of emotional revelations on both sides, and they need time alone, just the two of them, to come to terms with the infractions revealed and the feelings shared; a moment of calm to orient themselves towards the path that will lead them to whatever comes next.

* * *

Coffee made in the calm tranquility of his empty loft, Kate longs to sneak back beneath the covers with her loot. She checked the time on the digital stove display while she was finding her way around his kitchen, and was reassured to discover that her body clock performed right on cue. It's just after 7am, her natural time for waking, pre-dawn body drops and crime scene demands aside. Even on weekends she finds she sleeps no later than seven, unless she has somewhere special to be. Right now, that somewhere special is back in her partner's bed, with coffee and warm rolls to surprise him.

Castle stirs while she's gone, her weight lifting from the mattress, the loss of body heat, or maybe some, as yet, undiscovered psychic connection severed when she left the room, conspiring to drag him up out of sleep. Whatever it is, he stumbles his way back to wakefulness initially believing that he imagined the last twelve hours. He flops onto his back against his pillows, shaking his head from side to side as he covers his face with his hands, a deep feeling of disappointment settling in his chest. He's not surprised by her departure, merely saddened that she has reverted to type when he had hoped they had made more progress than that.

Kate watches him flop over in bed from a deep armchair in the corner of the room, giving him a moment to come to before she presents him with breakfast. When she sees the arm he throws wide across the mattress, his searching hand hoping to find her, being followed by a feeling of such despondency that he covers his face with his hands to stave off what he believes to be the disappointing start to his day, she finds herself unable to hold off revealing her presence any longer.

She clears her throat and then watches as he bolts upright in bed with such predictable alacrity that it's mostly comical. Comical, if it weren't so heartbreaking for what it symbolizes – that he has set the bar so low when it comes to his personal expectations of her that he more than expects her to be gone already – to have fled the scene in the pre-dawn light.

She cradles her own coffee cup to her chest, legs crossed, his long shirt pulled modestly down as far as it will go, at least covering her underwear.

"Morning." She tips her head to the side to greet him, her voice tuned low and gentle, a hint of shyness swirled in there too for the newness of this domestic scene.

"I thought you'd—" he rasps, pausing to clear his sleep-parched throat as he rests on his elbows, blinking owlishly in the warm, morning light.

"We have a day off," she smiles easily, a touch of eagerness to her tone.

They speak simultaneously. He stares.

_We._

"Castle?"

He continues to stare, as if she's some kind of mirage or a famous work of art he's seeing in person for the very first time.

"I…I mean, if you have plans, I can—" She thumbs in the direction of the front door, turns her head to follow her gesture. "I can go home, give you some space…I have laundry," she shrugs, when he says nothing further, just goes on watching her. "Sunday is usually brunch with my dad and then chores for me," she states, sharing a little more of her life with him every chance she gets, letting him in in all the ways she can think of to make up for her past shortcomings.

"Great. I'm all your—"

He pauses, seems to rethink his exuberant statement, though they both know what was on the tip of his tongue.

_I'm all yours, Kate Beckett, and it was ever thus._

"I…I mean, I'm free if you are," he says, toning it down a little.

"Great!" replies Kate, brightly, taking a long-overdue turn to be the driver in this nascent personal relationship of theirs.

She knows he's still hurting, reluctant to tumble into this if it means they crash and burn. So, she'll go at his pace, which is a darned sight faster than _her_ pace used to be, and if she shows off her new enthusiasm along the way…well, it won't hurt either of them to see how she really feels for a change.

Castle, for his part, has never seen her be so eager before, not about him. Not when it comes to spending time with him, alone, just the two of them. She's surprising him at every turn. He thinks maybe he might like it.

* * *

"I made breakfast," she tells him, getting up to add her coffee cup back onto the tray she has prepared so that they can eat in bed together.

Castle gawps even more, if that is possible, his eyes growing wide as Kate Beckett of all people walks towards his bed with a tray of coffee and warm rolls that she put together in _his_ kitchen, wearing one of _his_ Henley's. Forget sexy lingerie and imaginings of a more salacious kind, this here, right now, is one of the sexiest things he's believes he's ever seen, and they haven't even consummated their relationship yet.

"Staring," murmurs Kate in faint admonishment, while wearing a kooky smile that says she actually finds it kind of cute or amusing maybe when she places the tray in the middle of the bed and then crawls back in beside him.

"You made me breakfast," mumbles Castle, rubbing the back of his sleepy head, fluffing up his hair and adding to his general layer of rumpled adorableness.

Together they smell sleep-warmed; of fabric softener mixed with coffee and the scent of fresh baked goods. Castle thinks he might never leave this bed again if someone would only keep them in supplies and guarantee that Kate would remain by his side.

* * *

"_So_…" says Kate, tearing a soft breakfast roll apart and slathering a corner with a little butter, "what do you want to do today?"

Castle has managed to take a sip from his cup of coffee, but aside from watching her eat breakfast _in bed_ beside him, he has been unable to function on any higher plane just yet.

"I…uh…" he shrugs, floundering again when his gaze lands on the bare orb of her shoulder where his shirt has conspired to slide down her arm on one side exposing what seems like an acre of bare skin.

"Not sure we can fit all that in," teases Kate, turning to grin at him when he laughs in surprise at her smart, sarcastic remark.

"I'm just…"

"Getting used to this?" suggests Kate, with heart stopping honesty, nodding along with her partner when he nods back.

"Yeah. Could say that," acknowledges Castle, finally helping himself to the small basket of baked goods.

"Okay, well, how about you let me take the strain today?" offers Kate, keen to make an early start reassuring him a relationship is what she wants, is what she's prepared to work for. "Let me make a plan for us?"

"Do I get a veto?" he asks, in all seriousness, drawing a surprised chuckle from Kate, who has to cover her mouth with her hand to prevent the escape of some errant crumbs.

"Uh…yeah. Sure. _One_ veto, Castle. Other than that we do as _I_ wish. No complaining."

"If there's a shooting range involved can I just say right up front that—"

"_Wait!_" interrupts Kate, holding up her hand to silence him. "You think _that's_ what I do on weekends?" she asks, half amused and half annoyed.

"Well, I— You're so good at it, I just kind of assumed…" he trails off, withering under her arched-eyebrow stare. "Must take a lot of practice," he mumbles quietly, reaching for the little bowl of apricot jam.

"Okay, you are coming with me today. No excuses. And that veto is hereby revoked, Castle," she warns him. "You are going to experience a typical Kate Beckett Sunday…minus the laundry and brunch with my dad, of course," she amends, surprised to see him grin eagerly and nod with enthusiasm at her bossy declaration for their upcoming day together.

"Can't wait," he tells her, casting furtive, pleased little glances in her direction while they finish their breakfast in bed.

_TBC..._


	17. Chapter 17 - Lazy Like Sunday Morning

_A/N: Thank you for your reviews and messages. Another update, and as some of you might have seen on Twitter, this story has run so much longer than I expected resulting in me running out of song lyrics from 'Not Ready To Make Nice' for the chapter titles. Still, we won't let a little detail like that stop us._

_Enjoy..._

* * *

**Chapter 17: Lazy Like Sunday Morning**

_Previously…_

_"…how about you let me take the strain today?" offers Kate, keen to make an early start reassuring him a relationship is what she wants, is what she's prepared to work for. "Let me make a plan for us?"_

_"Do I get a veto?" he asks, in all seriousness, drawing a surprised chuckle from Kate, who has to cover her mouth with her hand to prevent the escape of some errant crumbs._

_"Uh…yeah. Sure. __One __veto, Castle. Other than that we do as __I __wish. No complaining."_

_"If there's a shooting range involved can I just say right up front that—"_

_"__Wait!__" interrupts Kate, holding up her hand to silence him. "You think __that's __what I do on weekends?" she asks, half amused and half annoyed._

_"Well, I— You're so good at it, I just kind of assumed…" he trails off, withering under her arched-eyebrow stare. "Must take a lot of practice," he mumbles quietly, reaching for the little bowl of apricot jam._

_"Okay, you are coming with me today. No excuses. And that veto is hereby revoked, Castle," she warns him. "You are going to experience a typical Kate Beckett Sunday…minus the laundry and brunch with my dad, of course," she amends, surprised to see him grin eagerly and nod with enthusiasm at her bossy declaration for their upcoming day together._

_"Can't wait," he tells her, casting furtive, pleased little glances in her direction while they finish their breakfast in bed._

* * *

Eventually, the French press is drained down to the dark roast dregs and only crumbs are left on their plates. Breakfast is over.

"Right…so, I think I'll go home and get cleaned up, put on some fresh clothes…" suggests Kate, carefully reloading their dishes onto the tray.

She feels Castle go still in bed beside her, his coffee cup poised at his mouth.

"Sure. Right. Of course," he nods, trying not to look like a man who has just lost a dollar and found a quarter.

His efforts are futile. Kate can sense his disappointment, and since she has no plans to move in with him anytime soon, she knows that this issue – of her having to go back to her own place to spend the night or get clean clothes or prepare herself for work – is going to keep coming up, and so she decides to tackle it head on.

She takes a breath to speak, but Castle gets in ahead of her. "You could always shower here…I mean, guest bathroom is upstairs and I have—"

"Castle?" she says softly, smoothing the covers out across her legs.

"Hmm?"

"Just because I'm going home to change doesn't mean anything is wrong between us," she points out, trying to gauge his reaction, to make sure he understands the point she's making. "Okay?"

He nods, but still manages to look hurt.

"Look, I know that believing things have really changed between us…that _I've_ changed, will take some time. I understand that. I just wanted to…to say that…anyway. Just…make sure we're on the same page."

"Of course," replies Castle, a little stiffly. "And thanks," he murmurs, raising his eyes from his empty coffee cup to meet her penetrating stare.

"Meet me?" asks Kate, swiveling in bed to face him.

"Meet you?" he repeats, blankly, still trapped down his own deep well of disappointment.

"Yes," she grins, bouncing on the bed with sudden enthusiasm.

"At your place? You want me to come pick you up?"

"No. Meet me…meet me at…" She pauses to think for a second, digging her nails into her scalp and the messy bun she's twisted her hair up into. "_The Bluebird!_ Meet me at the Bluebird Coffee Shop."

"_Okaaaay_," agrees Castle, drawing out his reply along with an amused, puzzled frown.

"You want to see how I spend my weekends, then we have to start at the Bluebird. East Village coffee date. Kind of appropriate, don't you think?" she grins, leaning in to press a swift, joyful kiss to his cheek, before she begins backing out of bed, unwittingly giving him a wonderful view down the front of her/his shirt.

Kate kneels on the edge of the mattress before lowering her feet to the floor and she looks so…so _renewed_ that Castle can picture her as a child – the carefree exuberance, the fearlessness, the dazzling light she was before darkness blighted her family's life and dimmed that inner glow.

"Bluebird it is then," he agrees, pieces of his heart slotting back together with such speed it leaves him breathless just feeling what her enthusiasm can do to him.

"Give me—" She looks around his bedroom for a clock. "All this fancy art and you don't even have a clock?"

Castle reaches for his cell phone and holds it up, smiling. "All I need to tell the time right here."

Kate shakes her head slowly, her hands now on her hips. "Our list just got longer," she warns him, waiting for him to reveal the time. "Tick tock, Castle," she adds, tapping her wrist where her father's watch would usually sit.

"Clock shopping, Beckett?"

"What's wrong? Clocks remind you of ageing? The sands of time running through your fingers?" she laughs, skilfully dodging the pillow he aims at her head.

"No. No, I'm fine with it," he insists, bravely, jutting out his chin in a gesture he hopes comes off as manly and virile.

"Come on, _what?_ Out with it, Castle," she laughs, sensing his reticence.

"Just…" he shrugs. "Shopping for household items together? Isn't that a little too close to…_nesting?_" he whispers, before gasping in horror and covering his mouth with his hands, eyes wide as saucers for comical effect.

_Touché, Kate Beckett._

Kate purses her lips, rolls her eyes and says, "Just tell me the Goddamn time, Castle."

* * *

He wishes Alexis were here…and then he doesn't. Having help selecting a shirt that says 'casual Sunday' but is still date-worthy would be nice. However, letting her see how keyed up and nervous he is, how much he believes is riding on this day together…

Nah, he does _not_ want to let his daughter get any kind of glimpse of that.

So he tries on three shirts, each one bluer than the last, and then he lays them all out on the bed in a row and plays _eenie meenie miney mo_ with them, until he gets to wear the shirt he wanted in the first place.

His hands fumble over the buttons, fingers feeling like fat hot dog sausages – stiff, useless and uncoordinated – as he tries to force what feels like a dinner plate through the eye of a needle. He dons dark wash jeans he hopes make his butt look good and a pair of navy blue, swede Tod's driving shoes, the classic rubber pebble sole and heel picked out in violent orange. Alexis asked him if he'd lost a bet with Ryan the day he brought the loafers home and he hasn't worn them since. Today, however, he decides is a day for bold choices in everything…so the lucky loafers are going to hit the sidewalks of Manhattan by Kate Beckett's side, his daughter's teasing be damned.

* * *

Across town, Kate is facing a dilemma of her own: hair up or down? She usually showers late on a Sundays after having devoted a couple of hours to household chores, and then she simply throws her damp hair up into a ponytail to go and meet her dad for brunch. But today is closer to what she is beginning to let herself think of as a date...with Castle, and so doubts form in her mind as to how she should dress for this particular Sunday.

She's on the point of getting out her hair dryer when she stops and reassess. She promised she'd show Castle a 'typical Kate Beckett Sunday', so it would be disingenuous to start moving the goal posts now.

The hairdryer goes back in the cabinet and her damp hair goes up into a hair tie, ponytail secured high on her head, messy, fast-drying curls tumbling down the back, loose hair escaping in tendrils around the nape of her neck and by her ears to create a soft frame around her face. She quickly shimmies into a pair of red skinny jeans and a loose purple top, her heart beating too fast to be healthy, and then she slides her gold sandals back on to finish off her outfit. An armful of thin gold bangles, a pair of red and gold drop earrings, her tan bucket bag, and she is ready to go.

* * *

Kate stops by the bodega, one block over from her apartment, to pick up the Sunday papers and then she walks the few remaining blocks to the Bluebird Coffee Shop where she agreed to meet Castle. Flat sandals, her naturally long stride, and first date nerves mean she arrives at the coffee shop first, almost ten minutes early. She chooses a table in the window, orders coffee for herself and then spreads the newspapers out on the table's worn blue surface. She's halfway through the crossword when she hears a tap on the window, glancing up to find the bluest pair of smiling eyes looking in at her.

Castle looks breathtaking, even through the dusty coffee shop window, and her heart rate ramps up another notch. She takes a deep breath to calm herself, squeezing her knees together in an attempt to get a grip, if she's to stand a chance of not giving herself away the second he lays eyes on her.

"Now, if you'd only had a clock, Castle, you'd have been here on time," she teases, as she goes on the offensive to cover up her nerves. She makes a Martha Rodgers-worthy production of checking her father's watch once her partner makes his way inside to their table.

"_I'm_ on time!" he declares, whipping his phone out of his pocket and swiping at the screen to check. "_See!_" he shows Kate, holding the cell out to her.

Kate is suddenly standing by his side before he notices, and she stretches up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, one hand lightly resting on his arm to steady herself. When she speaks, it's in such a warm, intimate tone that the nerves become all his. "Take a seat. I'll get coffee," she grins, shaking her head at how easy it is to tease him up today.

* * *

When she returns to the table with her wallet in one hand and Castle's coffee in the other, she finds him stretched out in one of the old wingback armchairs with the magazine supplement in his hand, trying to finish the crossword Kate had been working on.

He offers her a pleased, though slightly bashful, glance when she sits down, and then he waggles the magazine in front of her. "You're good," he remarks, giving her an appreciative smile. "You knew the Russian city where the Romanovs were murdered off the top of your head?"

"Sure. Only some people spell it with an E and some with a Y, so…" she shrugs, carefully placing his coffee cup down in front of him.

"Thanks. Ever been?"

"To Ekaterinburg?"

Castle nods, his chin resting on his hand as he watches her with utter fascination.

Kate takes a quick sip of her coffee before answering. "Mmm," she hums affirmatively, nodding while she swallows her coffee. "I took a trip to Russia one summer. Visited the woods where the Bolshevics buried the bodies of the Tsar and his family. The Soviet government demolished the house in Ekaterinburg where the murders actually took place. They built the Cathedral-on-the-Blood on the same spot, but it didn't open til 2003, a few years after I visited."

He's watching her intently as she speaks, a look of unguarded wonder and something she thinks might be pride on his face.

"Your brain is _so—_"

Castle stares at Kate, his sentence left unfinished. She can only guess what he intended to say next, but the expression on his face says his mouth and his brain have become slightly disconnected today, if the bright flush of embarrassment staining his cheeks is anything to go by.

Kate decides not to put him on the spot. He looks nervous enough without more teasing. So she lifts her pretty blue coffee cup and holds it out towards his to indicate she wants to make a toast.

"_To_…a lazy Sunday. May today be the first of many," she adds, unflinching when he holds her gaze and swallows thickly for all that she is saying about the future with that simple, yet bold, statement of intent.

"I'll drink to that," he manages to get out, eyes shining with so much fragile hope.

* * *

They drink their coffee in silence for a couple of minutes, shooting shy little looks at one another every now and again. Eventually, Kate picks up the small, laminated menu that's wedged between the sugar dispenser and a blue glass vase containing a single red gerbera daisy.

Castle assumes she's just pretending to look at the menu to pass the time or distract herself from the tension that's arcing between them, until she speaks, that is.

"I know we ate breakfast already, but they do these _amazing_ truffled eggs on brioche here. Want to share?" she asks, eyebrows shooting up in hope, along with her grin.

"With a smile like that, how could I refuse?" concedes Castle, holding up his hand to flag down a passing waitress and place their order.

They read the papers until the food arrives, broadsheet pages spread messily over their little table, the sections they don't want or are finished with stacked in an untidy heap at their feet. They finish the crossword together, racing to be the first to answer the clues, bickering over who filled in most of the blanks once they're done.

"You're good," acknowledges Castle, handing Kate the magazine.

"You mean for a cop?" grins Kate, arching her eyebrow in scepticism.

"_No!_ I mean you're _good._ Your general knowledge is…_expansive_. Can't you just take a compliment for once, Beckett?"

Kate nods, a little contritely, since she can see he means well. "Me and my general knowledge thank you," she says, and she smiles, sitting back in her chair to allow the waitress to place their food down on the table.

"You want two forks with that?" asks the girl.

"Yes, please, and two more flat whites," adds Kate, glancing at Castle, who nods his acknowledgement.

* * *

The scrambled eggs are perfect, just as amazing as billed – bright yellow, not too runny, served on a thick slice of toasted, buttered brioche along with wild mushrooms and truffle salt.

"Mm, these are _so_ good," moans Castle, around a mouthful of food. "I can see why you suggested coming here," he adds, looking around at the scattering of other diners enjoying a Sunday morning brunch.

The coffee shop obviously attracts a pretty hip, bohemian crowd – ripped jeans, graphic tees, floor-length boho skirts teamed with racer-back tanks, sandals and dirty sneakers, the occasional pair of leather lace-ups so scuffed and worn that they have more of a vintage than a suit and tie vibe about them. Most of the women could have stepped straight off the pages of a Free People catalog. The place fits Kate Beckett perfectly. The Kate Beckett that still exists beneath the sharp pantsuits, high heels, silk shirts, bearing the weight of responsibility and an extensive knowledge of criminal law, that is.

Castle can see that she's letting him into her private life, further than he's ever been before. She's letting him see off-duty Kate, the Kate that would probably have prevailed more had her mother not been taken from her in such a heart-breaking way and at such a desperately young age. He resolves to show her how much it means to him that she's willing to share this private side of herself with him, somehow, over the course of their day together.

She's taking things at his pace, making it easier for him to begin trusting her again, to get past the lie that almost had him walking away, turning his back on her for good. That he would have missed out on this - on spending the night together in the same bed, no matter how chaste, on the teasing and the crosswords, on sharing a simple plate of food with one another…

He shudders to think of how close he came to losing out on all of that, on missing the future that's opening up right in front of him.

* * *

"Thanks, Kate," he says, since he can't hold the sentiment in any longer.

She's smiling at him when she looks up, her features morphing into an expression of curiosity, eyebrows knitting together when she registers his words of appreciation.

"What are you thanking me for?"

Castle gestures around them. "For all of this. For asking me to meet you here, for…for sharing your Sunday with me, for…_truffled eggs_, Detective," he shrugs, offering her an apologetic smile, since he knows how he sounds – how utterly grateful - but he doesn't care because he wants her to know that about him anyway.

But it's so heartbreakingly simply, what she's doing with him now - spending time, opening up, sharing a little more of herself - and she knows he deserves this and so much more from her.

"Castle," Kate says quietly, reaching out to caress the hair on his forearm with the tip of her finger, dipping it beneath the rolled cuff of his shirt in a gesture that somehow feels far more intimate than sharing his bed did last night. He shivers at her touch, despite the warmth of the day, and it pleases her to see that she can have this effect on him after all the angst they've been through lately. "No need…please," she whispers, biting her lip. "No need to thank me."

* * *

A few minutes later, Kate pays the check, insisting that today is on her, that they can play 'Richard Castle Sunday' next weekend on his dime, body drops permitting.

"_So…_" he says brightly, now that they're out on the sidewalk, the remnants of their newspaper abandoned to the next customer, aside from the _Sunday Book Review_ and the _Movies_ section that Kate salvaged and slipped into her bag, "…where to now on this great odyssey of yours?"

Kate glances up and down the suddenly quiet street, and then she turns to smile at her partner. "Follow me," she instructs, taking off at a clip towards the nearest cross street. "And don't _dawdle_, Castle," she throws over her shoulder at the pursuing writer. "Clock's ticking," she adds, with an amused grin and a clever little wink he almost misses.

_Almost._

_TBC..._


	18. Chapter 18 - Getting To Know You

_A/N: Apologies for the update delay. Been pretty busy lately. Hope this longer chapter might help make up for...okay, no way that's gonna work, but here it is anyway. ;)_

* * *

'_I'm on this road  
My wheels just roll  
I've always...  
I've always, been yours  
But I feel it even more...lately'  
_  
_\- __**Sam Palladio &amp; Clare Bowen**__, 'Lately'_

* * *

**Chapter 18: Getting To Know you**

_Previously…_

_A few minutes later, Kate pays the check, insisting that today is on her, that they can play 'Richard Castle Sunday' next weekend on his dime, body drops permitting._

_"__So…__" he says brightly, now that they're out on the sidewalk, the remnants of their newspaper abandoned to the next customer, aside from the __Sunday Book Review__ and the __Movies __section that Kate salvaged and slipped into her bag, "…where to now on this great odyssey of yours?"_

_Kate glances up and down the suddenly quiet street, and then she turns to smile at her partner. "Follow me," she instructs, taking off at a clip towards the nearest cross street. "And don't __dawdle__, Castle," she throws over her shoulder at the pursuing writer. "Clock's ticking," she adds, with an amused grin and a clever little wink he almost misses._

_Almost…_

* * *

Castle catches up with Kate before they reach the corner, nearly colliding with her when she stops abruptly to scout for a taxi.

"We need a cab? I thought we were walking wherever it is you're taking me?" Castle faintly whines, having grown attached to the idea of quietly strolling the streets of the East Village alongside his beautiful date.

Kate looks down at Castle's fancy Tod's loafers and then back up at his face. "If I'm not mistaken, those are brand new shoes," she says, pointing to his fancy loafers. "So, you want to walk fifty blocks in this heat wearing shoes you haven't broken in yet, Castle, be my guest. But I'd rec—"

"_Taxi!_" yells Castle, whistling piercingly by Kate's ear to get the attention of a passing cab driver, his arm stuck out into the on-coming traffic.

Kate turns and flashes a grin at him when the yellow cab slides to a bouncy halt by the curb, pitching and rolling over the broken up asphalt like a rudderless ship adrift in a storm-tossed sea. "Thought not," she crows, playfully bumping shoulders with him and then giggling when he opens the door with an affected strop and urges her to get in ahead of him.

She's having fun – that thought suddenly breaks through the buzz of being with him on a Sunday with no bigger plan than to spend time together, and it hits her, _hard_. After days of stress and worry that she'd broken them irretrievably by lying, they're finally having fun together, and it feels as easy as it does to have him by her side on the job, because somehow, over time, they've found a rhythm and now they just fit.

* * *

Castle slides into the back of the cab next to her, just a little too late to hear her instruction to the driver. Kate is nothing if not excellent at maintaining an air of mystery when she wants to. Indeed Castle knows from bitter past experience exactly _how good_ she can be at keeping secrets when it suits her.

"So, where are we—?"

Kate slowly turns her head towards the writer and then, when she's face-to-face with him, the words of his partially asked question still drying on his lips, she says, "_Really?_" with one elegant eyebrow arched high.

Castle flops back against the firm plastic seat and folds his arms across his chest in resignation. "Guess not," he mutters, glancing out of the window as they pull away from the curb.

Kate instantly feels sorry for her partner, who has _the _most over-developed sense of curiosity of anyone she's ever met. She feels sorry for Martha too, all to easily able to imagine a little dark haired, five year old Castle wandering the sidewalks of Manhattan holding onto his mother's hand, a constant stream of questions and the classic follow-up - _'but why?'_ \- perpetually issuing like an echo from his enquiring little boy mouth. Poor Martha.

So she leans into his side, smiling at the warmth that immediately seeps into her bare skin from beneath the sleeve of his shirt and the bunched muscles she can feel beneath. "Do you want me to tell you where we're headed?" she offers, deciding that she will tell him if he really wants to know. She's withheld enough from him to last a lifetime after all.

Castle ponders for several seconds and then he turns to look at her, their faces so close that her eyes are the only thing left in focus. "No," he replies eventually, shaking his head.

Kate feels a rush of affection for Castle. For the restraint he's attempting to show, for how mature he's being, when it looks like he's about to burst at the seams with the simmering excitement and frustration of wondering where she's taking him next.

* * *

He doesn't have to wait too long.

"Anywhere here will be fine," she tells the driver, who immediately pulls up on the corner of West 40th and Ninth Avenue.

Kate quickly gets out and pays the driver, leaving the door open behind her for her partner to follow.

Castle sits inside the cab a little longer, tentatively peering out through the open door at the scene beyond.

"You coming?" asks Kate, poking her head back inside to look for him, amused confusion wrinkling her nose as to why he might be lingering in the back of a stale-smelling, over-used taxi.

Castle squints through the window again. People are teaming by in the street outside. "Where are we?" he mutters, as he finally exits the cab to look around at the busy throng, who all seem to know exactly where they're headed and why they're there.

"Did you bring me to _Port Authority_?" he asks, turning to stare at Kate when he spots the bus terminal across the street, its dark, jagged metal structure one of the ugliest buildings around.

Kate frowns in amusement, laughter bubbling just below the surface. "_Would I_?" she asks, trying to suppress a grin, her hands landing on her slim hips. "You really think I hang out at the _bus station_ on my weekends off?"

Castle shrugs. "You never know. You could be a closet Greyhound spotter," he suggests, with a poker-straight face Kate is unsure how he manages to pull off.

"We're going to the Hell's Kitchen Antique Market, if you must know. It's one block over and there's nowhere to stop. So I asked the driver to let us out here. Come on," she says, tugging on his sleeve to get him to follow her, before she disappears into the crowd.

* * *

The Antiques Market is as busy as the area around the bus station, though obviously there is less roll-along luggage being toted around. Unless you count the professional-looking antiquers haunting the aisles between stalls with their beady eyes peeled and worn shopping trolley's rolling along behind them, that is. Mostly those belong to wizen old ladies, a few of whom are accompanied by eccentric looking gents; their moth-eaten fur collars still smelling of naphthalene despite the regular airing they look to get, come rain or shine. One man in particular flaunts a paisley print silk cravat, his cotton candy hair dyed a vivid carmine. He sports a gold pocket watch, which is suspended from his burgundy check vest, and an ornate pinkie ring on his fat little finger belonging to a family of sometime substance that most likely was never his own.

Castle stares at the eccentric, melting pot mélange of people, all of Manhattan and the world beyond represented here on this one giant plot by tourists and locals alike, his writer's brain trying to photograph and catalog all that he is seeing for future use.

"Come on," urges Kate, an excited gleam in her eye that Castle has never witnessed before. "This way," she adds with an air of confidentiality, as if sharing a secret with him. She snags hold of his hand as she pushes deeper into the fray.

"What are we—?" he asks, shivering bodily at the sensation of Kate's soft palm sliding over his and then the instant connection he feels when her fingers wrap around his knuckles and hold on this time.

"Clock," she throws over her shoulder, like he should know this already. "Pay attention, Castle," she adds, tugging on their joined hands to narrow the gap between them. "And stay close. Wouldn't want you to get lost and have to get them to make an announcement over the speaker system," she vaguely threatens, knowing there's a distinct possibility Martha had to do this more than once during his childhood years. He's such a dreamer.

"Well, you sure look like you know where you're going," he comments, bumping against her back when they're suddenly stopped in their tracks by a huddle of hipsters gathered in front of a vintage clothing stall.

The women circle the stacks of clothes like seagulls around a ripped garbage bag full of discarded food. Young girls with snake hips and stringy, tangled hair paw through what, to Castle at least, looks like a pile of old rags, clutching their precious finds to their chests until they can pay the vendor and stuff their newest ratty trophy into their beat-up, shoulder bags.

"What the—" he murmurs near Kate's ear, his free hand unthinkingly falling to her hip as she guides them past the swarm of determined-looking wannabe fashionistas, who probably all have serious online blogging credentials, he realizes, as they skirt around the edge of the scrum.

"Vintage," snorts Kate, shaking her head. "I was wearing stuff like that back in college when—"

* * *

Kate abruptly stops talking and begins waving at someone instead. "Oh, hey, there's Marvin."

Castle pines, eager to hear the rest of any story where Kate Beckett wears a crop top with _'Wassup'_ picked out in gold sequins across the front of her chest.

"Who's Marvin when he's at home?" he asks, instantly disliking the guy before he even lays eyes on him, since he's an unwitting cock-blocker to the rest of a 'Kate-in-college' story.

"Let's just say that I know a guy," Kate tells Castle, cryptically, turning to give him a coy little wink.

"_You_ _know_ a guy?" repeats the writer, thinking that's actually _his_ line.

"Yeah, Castle. I know lots of guys," she shrugs, breezy and off-handed.

"No need to rub it in," he mutters, a composite image of Will Sorenson, Josh Davidson and Tom Demming springing to mind. It ain't pretty.

Kate rolls her eyes. "I mean, _I_ have guys too. Experts and the like. Now, you need a clock for the loft and we are going to find you a clock."

"And Marvin is your clock guy?"

"Yes. He's a horologist, if you must know," Kate announces proudly. "Looks can be deceiving. You should know that by now," she chides, with a quick dig to his ribs that tickles more than hurts.

Castle reaches for her arm and leans closer so she can hear him. "He's a—? Could you please repeat that…_slowly_?" he asks, a mischievous lilt to his request.

Kate turns to face him, a glint in her eye as she slips two fingers inside the front of his shirt between buttons and arches up on her tiptoes, holding onto his belt for balance. "Ho-rol-o-gist," she whispers, achingly slowly, taking her time to pronounce all four syllables, letting her tongue peak out from between her lips midway through her flirty little performance.

When she's done teasing, she pops down off her toes and pats her stunned-looking partner on the chest, but not before her short nails graze the bare skin of his sternum as she withdraws her fingers from inside his shirt sending bolts of electricity racing up his spine and spilling out across his skin.

They're getting bolder with one another, achingly slowly but surely.

* * *

"So…Marvin will help us find you a clock. Something with character…" she informs him, turning away.

"But without woodworm…" adds Castle, looking over her shoulder at both stall and stallholder with some dubiety.

"Yes, of course, without woodworm."

"Or termites…or dry rot or wet rot or—"

"_Castle!_"

"What?"

"Would you just stop?" she laughs, shaking her head and grinning at his ridiculous behavior.

"Just checking, Beckett, because the thought of little worms wiggling their way out into my bedroom in the middle of the—"

"Got it!" she grins, covering his mouth with her hand to silence him. She only removes it once she's certain he won't protest any further. "Enough. Okay? I don't want worms crawling around next to me while I'm sleeping either," she adds, watching as his eyes widen at the inference that she too will be sleeping in the vicinity of his new clock; that they will be sharing a bed in future.

Even if he knows this is what she has been working towards in all of her truth-giving over the last couple of days, it still feels like a big admission, like a big deal to him.

Kate smiles at him and her voice softens further. "Now, come on. Let me introduce you. And be _nice_," she warns him, tugging on his hand, towing him behind her like a colorful kite. "I've known Marvin a long time."

* * *

Marvin is swamped. Clocks are clearly a big draw at this particular flea…uh, antique market, Castle observes, mooching around the fringes of the stall while Kate waits patiently to catch her guy's attention.

She rejoins him after a minute or two, coming to stand by his side as he inspects a small silver pocket watch with a Celtic cross etched onto the back of the beveled case. "Still busy," she murmurs, unwittingly brushing her bare arm over his when she reaches past him to pick something up.

Castle draws a surprised breath, but Kate misses his reaction to her touch amidst the hubbub that is going on around them.

"So, I thought you might like one of these…a book clock," she suggests, holding up a leather bound, gold embossed volume with a set of clock hands fixed onto the front.

"A _book_ clock?" repeats Castle, taking the copy of Moby Dick that Kate is holding out for him to look at.

He hadn't noticed them before, but now that she's pointed it out, there's actually quite a collection layered on Marvin's stall.

"Yeah, come on. It's a thing. Perfect for a writer, don't you think?"

"An _actual_ thing?" he repeats distractedly, turning the old, repurposed book over in his hands with great care. It is beautiful. She has a good eye.

"Yes, Castle. An _actual_ thing. Marvin makes them. Scouts for old volumes in second hand bookstores and places like this, and then he fits them with clock mechanisms on the inside and hands on the front cover. Et voila, you have a book clock."

"I think it's a perfect idea," murmurs Castle, touched that Kate would be so thoughtful.

He picks up a copy of _'The Modern Sex Manual'_, which has also been turned into a clock, and waggles his eyebrows at her suggestively.

Kate shakes her head in admonishment, gently removes it from his hands and puts it back down on the display. "Alexis," she murmurs in his ear, her lips just grazing the curved edge of cartilage, making him shiver. Goose bumps rise along the surface of his skin, radiating out from the point where her fingers curl around his forearm, like ripples on a pond.

"Good point," he concurs, secretly pleased that _she_ doesn't seem to have a problem with that particular book, but is just looking out for his kid.

They finally settle on a beautifully worn volume of Bram Stoker's _'Dracula'_, which Kate insists on paying for, but not before introducing him to Marvin the horologist.

* * *

Marvin turns out to be quite a character - a book lover and a knowledgeable antiques dealer - his slightly eccentric air is right up Castle's street, and the writer engages him with all sorts of questions about his private sources for used books and the most valuable find he's made so far (an imported first edition copy of Louisa May Alcott's _'Little Women'_) while Kate pays his assistant for Castle's clock.

He offers her his arm once they've said their goodbyes, and Kate takes it without hesitation. She has his gift, wrapped and tucked away safely inside her bag, and they bump shoulders with the other bargain hunters and each other as they slowly move two-abreast through the crowd.

Castle feels her squeeze his biceps twenty meters or so down the aisle they're currently browsing. He turns his head to look down at her, only to find a look of concentration mixed with barely suppressed excitement on her face. Her eyes are open wider than normal and it only adds to her show-stopping beauty. He regards her quietly for a second or two as they resume walking, Kate guiding him in the direction she wants to go with a light pressure on his arm. Her expression reminds him of a dog spotting a rabbit through the trees – it's intense and utterly focused.

"You okay?" he asks, drawing his arm towards his own body and her hand with it to get her attention.

"Over there," she mutters, nodding her head in the direction of an old woman with a haberdashery, oddments and fripperies stall.

"Yeah? I _think_ I see what you're looking at," he replies doubtfully. "You need…_cotton_?" he guesses, eyes roaming the stall for something Kate Beckett might possibly need amongst the sizeable display of darning needles, pin cushions, embroidery kits, reels and reels of cotton and silk thread, together with a vast selection of satin and velvet ribbon in a rainbow array of colors.

Kate purses her lips and quietly shakes her head, a smile beginning to form in her eyes just as a bashful blush pinks her cheeks. "Thimble," she whispers, tugging him with her, long slender fingers effortlessly capturing his.

"You—you need a…a _thimble_?" he repeats, unable to believe that he's heard her properly.

"No, Castle," she chides with a silly, happy smile. "I collect them."

* * *

Well, it turns out, once he regains his faculties, that badass Beckett, leather-clad, Harley riding, queen of all things cool, is actually kind of a dork - a dork and a geek about her thimbles.

"How did I not know this about you?" he pesters, his voice wide with wonder, as his hand settles low on the curve of her back while she explains her fascination with these little objects to him.

"My grandma on my dad's side had an antique Norwegian enamel thimble. It had a tableau of an old ship sailing around it. Her family came to America from Ålesund in 1835 and her own mother brought it with her when they emigrated. She'd let me play with it whenever we came to visit, and when she died, she left it to me," Kate explains, her face wistful with remembrance.

"That's a sweet story." Castle has to admit that he's relieved that not all of her family memories are bad.

"My mom had a plain pewter thimble for sewing and a thimblette for leafing through court papers. You know those little rubber—"

"Yeah, I know the ones you mean," says Castle, with a smile. "They use them at the bank for counting money."

Kate bumps his shoulder. "Why am I not surprised you'd associate them with counting large wads of notes."

He winks at her. "Ever seen a million dollars, Beckett?"

Kate grins indulgently and shakes her head.

"Neither had I until I asked my bank manager to break one out for me and count in it their safety deposit suite right in front of me. _Pretty_ impressive," he crows, grinning back at his partner, looking for all the world as if he's forgotten all about the pain she recently caused him.*

* * *

Kate turns back to the stall, her gaze fixed on one thimble in particular. It's the prettiest of the collection the old woman has on display – a 'Tiffany turquoise' colored enamel background which is home to a delicate suggestion of hand-painted, pink peony roses which ring the outside, complimented by bright green leaves in a kind of garland design, encircling the circumference of the pretty object. A band of gold leaf rings the thimble top and toe, framing the delicate flower design perfectly.

"I started collecting thimbles after my grandmother died. I still have my mom's pewter one and I add to them whenever I can. Travelling is a good way to pick up unusual designs, old and modern, and then there's places like this," she says, nodding and smiling to the stallholder to indicate that she would like to see the floral one up close.

The small, handwritten sign on the display reads: _Antique Enameled Gilded Silver Stone Top Thimble w Roses Early 20th Century. $300._

"This particular thimble would have been given as a romantic gift to a wife or a lover, possibly on Valentine's Day," the old woman informs Kate, before turning to wink at Castle. "The artist has used the language of flowers to communicate a message between giver and recipient."

"And what do peonies signify?" asks Castle, venturing the question they would both like to know the answer to.

"Shame or bashfulness," explains the old woman, "since mischievous wood nymphs were said to hide inside the flower's large petals. Also, the soft pink color is liken to the blush on a woman's cheeks after...loving," she adds, to Kate's horror. "The Chinese have always held the peony in high esteem," she carries on, oblivious to the peony-colored blush now prettying up Kate's cheeks. "They call it 'the King of flowers', or 'flower of riches and honor'. So you see, it has many meanings."

The writer smiles at the old lady as she hands the delicate thimble to Kate, who carefully cradles it in the palm of her hand, holding it out for Castle to see.

"Never thought I'd say this, but it's actually kind of beautiful. Like an old master, but in miniature," the writer observes, gently holding onto Kate's wrist to get close and see the thimble more clearly.

"That's what I love about them," replies Kate, smiling and thanking the woman as she hands the thimble back. "They tell little stories, every one, that, and they're easy to store," she adds, turning away from the stall.

* * *

Castle looks back at the pretty turquoise and pink thimble as the woman carefully replaces it in it's spot on her little cloth-covered shelf, his brow furrowed in confusion.

He catches Kate's arm and she turns to him, enquiringly. "You—you didn't want it?"

Kate smiles serenely and shakes her head, eyes darting back to glance at the thimble once more, betraying how much she really does want it.

"But it's so pretty," he points out, protesting their abandonment of the unusual, meaning-laden objet.

Kate laughs and nods. "Yeah, and out of my price range, Castle. Come on," she says, offering him her hand. "Let's go get something to eat."

Castle takes her hand but tugs on it firmly to stop her from going any further.

"What?" asks Kate, turning back once more at the surprise jerk to a halt.

"We're not leaving until you get that thimble. My treat," he insists, when she begins to protest.

Kate shakes her head adamantly. "No, Castle. No way. Absolutely not."

"Enough. You've taken me out, shared your weekend with me, bought me breakfast _and_ a clock. It's the least I can—"

"Rick, I can't accept…_no_. It's too much," she continues, standing her ground.

Castle turns back towards her, shielding them from the interest of the stallholder, who is watching them both keenly. He takes both of her hands in his and waits until she raises her eyes from the ground to look at him.

"Listen to me, Kate. I have annoyed, pestered, nay bugged the hell out of you for the last four years. I don't listen when you tell me to do half the things you ask me to do—"

"You mean like now?" interjects Kate, making his point for him.

"Shh, don't interrupt me," he tells her quietly, touching one of his fingers to her lips to silence her protest.

Kate miraculously stops talking at the shock of this intimate gesture. If Castle is a little shocked too at his own boldness, he doesn't show it.

"But more than all of that, I owe you for all the small and big ways you have impacted my life."

"You mean like almost getting you killed several times over?"

"Are you going to let me speak or do I have to gag you, Detective?" Castle asks playfully, though Kate can see that there is a true weight behind what he is trying to say to her.

She looks at her feet and then gestures for him to carry on with his justification for wanting to buy her this expensive gift.

"You have inspired me since the day I met you. Some days _I_ don't know how you put up with me, but you do…mostly with good grace."

Kate laughs at his pretty accurate description.

"My point is, I was more or less blocked when I met you, bored with Derek Storm, beginning to panic that I was some…some one trick pony of a writer, and then…" he shrugs, an adorable smile on his face.

"And then?" prompts Kate, still holding onto one of his hands, which he suddenly squeezes.

"Then you gave me Nikki, Kate. You gradually let me become your partner and you opened up a whole new world to me…the guys, Lanie. These last few years have been some of the happiest…and the most frustrating," he admits with a ready chuckle, "of my entire life. And I have you to thank for that. So, let me buy you the goddamn thimble and let's go get something to eat, okay?"

Kate smiles shyly at her feet and then she drags her gaze up to meet his, blue eyes softly shining as he waits for her to get on board. She bites her lip and then nods.

"Okay," she concedes, squeezing his fingers in response. "And, Castle, thank you."

* * *

The lady at the stall carefully wraps up the tiny thimble in tissue paper, and, while they wait, Kate leans in against her partner, her chin coming to rest on his shoulder, her fingers on his waist, and she whispers in his ear, "Dinner's on me tonight. No arguments."

Castle turns at her words to find her face achingly close, her mouth almost brushing his, and he blinks slowly as she exhales, warm air caressing his cheek.

"Kate?" he whispers, fingers lightly encircling her wrist, as he leans in, nudging her nose with his own ever so gently, before he finally kisses her.

They both close their eyes, melting into one another, losing themselves to this totally unexpected moment. The kiss is gentle, tender, explorative for the briefest of heartbeats, and then they pull apart when the stallholder clears her throat, announcing that their parcel is wrapped and ready to go.

Castle pays the woman and thanks her profusely, while Kate stands off to one side looking thoughtful and a little stunned.

This time it's Castle who offers Kate his hand to hold as they resume wandering the rest of the market. Neither speaks for a couple of minutes and they meander aimlessly, lost inside their own heads, happy to hold hands and spend time together with no big agenda, no time constraints and no interruptions for once.

* * *

Finally Castle speaks. He clears his throat and strokes his thumb over the back of Kate's hand to get her attention. "Hey."

She turns to look at him, tucking her hair behind her ear in what amounts to a rather shy gesture. "Hey, yourself," she says, leaning in to bump shoulders with her partner.

"How're you doing over there?"

"Good," she grins, her eyes crinkling at the sides. "You?"

Castle nods and kicks a stone. "Pretty good."

"Just pretty good?" teases Kate, swiveling her eyes to look at him again.

"Okay, pretty great. That better?"

"Much," she laughs, squeezing tightly on his hand.

"So, where to now on this magical mystery tour?" he asks, dropping her hand so they can part to get through the crowd.

"Well, I thought I'd spare you my Sunday yoga class," Kate informs him, with a bashful giggle that tips her whole body forward. The thought of him attempting yoga is too funny for words.

As soon as they bypass the log jamb of people, Kate gravitates back to Castle's side and reclaims his hand as if this has been their way for years.

The writer tries not to let her see how touched he is by how open and giving she's being today lest it embarrass her or stop her from doing more.

"We said an '_authentic'_ Kate Beckett Sunday," he reminds her, teasing, using air quotes to stress his point. "Now you're editing it down for my sake by _redacting_ your yoga class?"

"I did not redact it," Kate laughs in surprise. "Don't be so ridiculous. I just didn't think you'd be up to practicing asanas with a roomful of spandex-clad women."

"Ass what now?" he beams, knowing he just killed it with an Espo-style joke. Okay, a very _as_inine (see there he goes again, he's on a roll) Espo joke, but a joke nonetheless.

Kate glares, pretending to be mad, as she taps her foot on the ground.

"Okay." He holds his hands up in surrender. Joining her yoga class might be the fastest way to turn her off him and he quite likes the progress they've made so far today. "Fair point. But…maybe you can put on a private display for me later?"

Kate smirks. He's got game all right. "Yoga is not some kind of exhibition sport, Castle."

"Then…just pretend you're doing class by yourself. I wouldn't want you missing yoga and then tightening up on my account."

Kate feels a sudden rush of heat to her face and Castle's eyes widen when he notices her reaction and replays what he's just said inside his own head.

"I—"

Kate sniggers, finally doubling over as if she's going to burst if she holds her laughter in any longer. "Did you _hear_ what you just said?"

"Yeah, about thirty seconds too late," he admits, laughing with her.

"_Tighten up_? I know it's been a while but—"

"_Katherine Beckett!_" declares Castle, putting on his best scandalized voice, his eyes widening in total amusement at Kate's dirty joke.

"Oh, come on. That was funny," she argues, elbowing him in the ribs.

They lightly bounce off one another and Castle reaches out to steady Kate as they exit the antiques market and turn right to head down the street. He glances at her, this beautiful woman he's falling in love with all over again, and then he quietly concedes the point. "Yeah, I guess it was pretty funny," he replies, going quiet for a beat or two, before he adds, "But I still want to see your asanas."

_TBC..._

_*Note: I am well aware that banks do not routinely keep a million dollars cash in their vaults, before I get a bunch of reviews and PM's criticising that point. This is fiction, just go with it. :)_


	19. Chapter 19 - Reality Check

_A/N: Thank you for your continued support and enjoyment of this story. Your enthusiasm really means a lot...and as you can see, it makes me write faster too! ;) _

* * *

**Chapter 19: Reality Check **

_Previously…_

_"Okay." He holds his hands up in surrender. Joining her yoga class might be the fastest way to turn her off him and he quite likes the progress they've made so far today. "Fair point. But…maybe you can put on a private display for me later?"_

_Kate smirks. He's got game all right. "Yoga is not some kind of exhibition sport, Castle."_

_"Then…just pretend you're doing class by yourself. I wouldn't want you missing yoga and then tightening up on my account."_

_Kate feels a sudden rush of heat to her face and Castle's eyes widen when he notices her reaction and replays what he's just said inside his own head._

_"I—"_

_Kate sniggers, finally doubling over as if she's going to burst if she holds her laughter in any longer. "Did you __hear__ what you just said?"_

_"Yeah, about thirty seconds too late," he admits, laughing with her._

_"__Tighten up__? I know it's been a while but—"_

_"__Katherine Beckett!__" declares Castle, putting on his best scandalized voice, his eyes widening in total amusement at Kate's dirty joke._

_"Oh, come on. That was funny," she argues, elbowing him in the ribs._

_They lightly bounce off one another and Castle reaches out to steady Kate as they exit the antiques market and turn right to head down the street. He glances at her, this beautiful woman he's falling in love with all over again, and then he quietly concedes the point. _

_"Yeah, I guess it was pretty funny," he replies, going quiet for a beat or two, before he adds, "But I still want to see your asanas."_

* * *

They walk aimlessly for a few minutes, sauntering down Ninth Avenue amidst a flow of colorful strangers, like two fall leaves carried downstream on a warm breeze. Kate's hand is warm and relaxed in his, and Castle mentally shakes his head. He would disbelieve everything that has happened over the last few days to enable them to be like this with one another, if he hadn't been right here to witness it all for himself. Kate Beckett is holding his hand in the street and she loves him. Those two thoughts by themselves are extraordinary. Together they are close to mind-blowing. He wants to give into the happiness he's sure he should let engulf him from his head down to his toes, but fear still skirts the edges of his psyche as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Whatcha thinking over there?"

Kate's gentle, teasing tone pulls him back to the present and he gives her a tight smile, turning his head to look down at where she walks by his side.

"Honestly? I was thinking about us. About…" He trails off, frowning, searching around for the right words.

"Last few days?" asks Kate, holding his hand just a fraction tighter, if he's not mistaken.

"You too?" he asks, checking on her again, a hint of concern in his eyes. This, all of it, leaves tiny droplets of fear trickling through his veins if he dwells for too long on what might have been and he wonders if it's the same for her.

Kate nods slowly, confirming that her thoughts are circling the same orbit, adopting the same holding pattern as his own. "I'm—you're so forgiving, Rick, and I'm…_so_ grateful," she says quietly, bleeding honesty from every pore.

Castle absorbs her thanks, her gratitude, in silence for a few seconds. He's never been able to hold onto a grudge with anyone who mattered to him. Not for long. In fact, he has often wondered if this trait has made him some kind of a soft target: a door mat for people to wipe their feet on, an open invitation to trample all over his heart. His mother has said as much from time to time over the years, when women have come, taken, used, abused and then left him for something they perceived as better.

He returns to the present when they're forced to stop at a crosswalk, the lights against them, and Kate has to haul him back from just stepping off the curb, so caught up is he in this spiral of introspection.

* * *

A few seconds later, Castle takes a deep breath and moistens his lips. Never a fan of confrontation, or blame either, though he knows that some things – particularly in this case – need to be said. This is too important to let past mistakes lie, partly for fear that they will become a pattern. But mostly, he speaks out because it matters too damn much. _She_ matters too much.

"I don't like that you lied or that you left…never will, but you came back," he tells her, just as he's been trying to tell himself. "That's...that's what matters now. You came back and you put in a lot of work to...to be better...for me."

Kate doesn't say anything to that. When he glances at her she just looks thoughtful, thoughtful and maybe a little chastened.

Castle scrunches his face up, half grimace, half smile, before he makes his next confession. "Can I admit that a small part of me, a _really_ shallow, egotistical part, is pleased that you couldn't get over me?"

He's referring of course to her admission that the whole reason she left after she was shot was to get him out of her system in a misguided attempt to keep him safe. His comment is delivered in a tone that sings of lighthearted, though it is no less true for being so, and Kate takes it in the spirit that it's meant.

She smiles, clever and a little bashful too. "I know you better than that," she reminds him, playfully bumping her shoulder against his as the crossing signal changes and they step out into the road. "Why would you think I wouldn't already know that about you?"

Castle gives her a look she can't interpret and so once they're safely across the road she guides him over to a doorway, more to say what he needs to hear without the distraction of negotiating a crowded street. She spies a coffee shop with two open spots in the window and jerks her head in that direction.

"Caffeine? Do you mind?" she asks, knowing that his weakness for the stuff almost matches her own.

"Sure," he replies, ushering her inside the cafe ahead of him.

* * *

Once they're seated in the window on high wooden stools, two steaming cups of coffee in front of them, she picks right back up with the point she was about to make outside.

"Castle, we—Look, I've never known anyone the way I know you," she admits, startling the writer enough that he's forced to look at her, almost dropping the tiny silver coffee spoon he has pinched between thumb and forefinger in the process.

He raises his eyebrows in surprise, but Kate meets his disbelief with an affirmative nod of her head. She will not back down on this point – he is the human being she knows best in the world, even better than her own father, since she's worked with, observed, and at times studied him in the most unusual, stressful, but more often the most tedious of situations. They have come to know one another extraordinarily well, though they each might not recognize the fullness of their knowledge quite yet.

"I know that maybe sounds…presumptuous. I don't know. But it's true. And you might think that I'm closed off a lot of the time, and maybe I am, but I'm also pretty certain that no one knows me better than you do either…no one ever has."

Castle shakes his head slightly, as if clearing his foggy brain. "Why? How?"

"Because I chose never to let anyone in before," she tells him, letting the implications of her words sink in. "I thought…wrongly, it turns out, that if no one got in it meant I wouldn't get hurt. But I need you to get in, Castle. I am _asking_ you to get in…under my skin, into my head…all of it."

Castle watches her plead for him to keep on pushing his way into her life, even further than he has before, with no small amount of amazement that she should ask this of him. It's like getting the keys to the kingdom.

"Everyone needs someone to be that person for them. A reality check, a…a tether, someone to ground you and make you question yourself, your choices, your thinking, the direction your life is taking even. And I need…no, I _want_ that person to be you," she tells him, vehemently, reaching out to grip his forearm.

"That's a pretty big responsibility," he manages to get out around the lump in his throat, overwhelmed that finally, after all these years, she's inviting him into the very heart of her life.

"Yeah, it is," agrees Kate, watching him carefully. She touches his hand gently, where it cups the coffee she set in front of him a moment ago, her fingers curling around the small glass until they meet his on the other side. The barista created a heart in the middle of this one, and so Kate gave it to Castle, hoping he'd see the symbolism in her tiny gesture. "But I think you're more than up to the task. You've never let me down."

Castle shakes his head again, lifting their hands off the glass so that their fingers tangle in a little unruly heap against his thigh. "Letting you down, Kate…I…it would—"

"Shhh," whispers Kate, leaning in to kiss him lightly on the lips. "Then don't. _Be_ there, Castle, and I'll be there for you. We can do this, I know we can."

She pulls back a hair's breadth to kiss his cheek, curling her fingers gently beneath his jaw and around behind his ear to keep him close. Castle shudders at her touch, his breathing becoming short and shallow, eyes slipping closed as she continues to caress his face, to plant tiny, featherlike kisses over his skin, nuzzling her nose against his cheek.

This is a brand new version of Kate Beckett he's getting to know - the Kate who does her laundry on Sundays, collects thimbles, wears flat gold sandals and loose-fitting blouses, whose hair bounces when she walks from atop a high, girlish ponytail. Kate who laughs more than he's ever seen. Kate Beckett who loves him and wants him in the very center of her life, making demands, caring, arguing, keeping her on track, as she promises to do for him. He feels it ripple through him like a turning tide, the sea change they're making to their lives.

Eventually, Kate rests her forehead against her partner's and they both take a moment to get their racing hearts under control, because the promises they're making to one another are as important as any vow, and they're both wise enough to know that. Stepping over the lines they'd drawn for one another, back when their partnership began, is a big deal, and it seems that they've chosen today to finally make that leap.

* * *

A chair scrapes across the wooden boards of the coffee shop floor somewhere behind them and it reverberates loudly. The intrusive noise is enough to make them pull apart. When they sit up straight, returning their attention to their coffee cups, Kate finds herself staring out of the window into the stunned faces of Detectives Ryan and Esposito, who are standing a few feet away beside their police issue Charger, parked over by the curb.

"Oh shit," she murmurs, drawing Castle's attention with her muttered expletive and the tightening of her fingers around his thigh, where she had allowed her hand to come to rest.

Castle glances out the window to see what Kate's looking at and he too comes face-to-face with the boys.

He groans, while somehow trying to keep his expression neutral until he can elicit Kate's view on how she wants to handle this unexpected turn of events.

"What do you want to—?"

"_Do_?" asks Kate, filling in for him when he stalls as they watch the two male detectives exchange words and then begin heading in their direction.

Whatever they decide, they have to make it fast.

"No chance we can ignore what just happened," Kate points out, removing her hand from Castle's leg and wrapping her fingers around her cup of coffee instead.

"Maybe they didn't see us," offers Castle, with an unconvincing lift to his voice.

"Seriously?" asks Kate, turning to look at him.

"I don't know. Reflection?" he suggests, with a shrug. "It's still pretty bright out. _Oh!_ I had a problem with Alexis," he quickly mutters, conjured up in a flash of inspiration, creating an instant excuse for them to have been meeting on a Saturday afternoon, albeit a thin one, since kissing and touching seem to have been involved in this little father-daughter advice session.

"Is this gonna be a problem for you?" asks Kate bluntly, since they now have so little time left before the boys descend on them with impertinent questions or hazing or both.

"No. _You?_" asks Castle, turning to look directly into her eyes. He does not want her to feel uncomfortable in front of her team when this thing between them is so tender and new and still largely undefined.

"You even have to ask? Castle, I spent last night in your _bed_, and okay, we might not have—"

"Well, well, well…what _do_ we have here?" sing-songs Esposito, sidling up to their perch at the window, with Ryan hot on his heels, before Kate can even finish her sentence.

"Hey, guys," smiles Kate, going for off-hand, hoping some idle chitchat about the boys' monthly Saturday shift might be enough to keep them off the scent, at least until she and Castle can have a proper talk about how they should handle the new _them_ with the outside world at large and the Twelfth Precinct in particular. "Did you catch a case?"

"Did we catch a case?" smirks Esposito, repeating Kate's own words back to Ryan, who is also smiling, though a little more uncomfortably, as he stands behind his far bolder, cockier partner.

"_Well?_ Did you?" Kate persists, getting just a fraction irritated at the overly-light tone Espo is taking, after the fraught couple of days and nights she and Castle have had to endure while they worked through a host of painful personal issues to salvage a future together.

"Yeah, guys. What's up?" Castle throws into the mix, hoping a barrage of small questions will deflect them. "You out canvassing or something?"

"More like or somethin'. And I could ask you the same thing?" counters Espo, looking pointedly from one to the other.

"Is this what you guys do on your weekends off? Meet for coffee?" asks Ryan, looking vaguely put out not to be included, if that is the case.

"Among…_other_ things," replies Kate, cryptically, while Castle blurts out "Alexis had a problem," at the exact same time, making them both look as guilty as sin.

Kate's cool statement about them meeting to do 'other things' draws a surprised look from Castle, since her coy reply really isn't helping matters if they're still trying to be discreet.

"I—I needed a female perspective on things…Alexis…so…" he babbles, before trailing off, giving Kate an apologetic shrug, because they're bombing and they both know it.

"And you called Beckett?" asks Espo, disbelievingly, giving Castle a dead-eyed stare.

Castle is offended on Kate's behalf. "_Yes_, I called Beckett. She's a…_girl _and pretty good at helping my daughter when she has a...a problem," he stammers, remaining non-specific about the nature of the problem.

"It's okay, Castle. You don't have to defend my feminine skills to these two," drawls Kate, before going in for the kill. "Espo has cried on my shoulder over Lanie many times and Ryan…well, when Ryan needed a little personal advice about Jenny's—"

"I think we get the picture," interrupts Ryan, holding up his hand to silence Kate, before his own dirty laundry gets aired in public. "Beckett makes a great woman when the need arises."

Castle's face goes red from the effort of holding in his laughter at the unconsciously dirty, funny remark Ryan has just made.

Kate hops down off her stool with a smirk and gathers her bag onto her shoulder. "Well, speaking of _needs arising_…" she says, giving Castle's body a slow, thorough once over. "I really have to get going," she tells the flummoxed detectives, winking at Castle.

Castle sits rooted to his stool, heart sinking for a couple of seconds as he watches his partner walk away, before Kate stops by the door, turns back to him and says, "You comin', Castle? We have to change for dinner and we're already..._tight_ for time."

Castle scrambles down off his stool and is by Kate's side in seconds. "Sorry, guys. You heard the lady. Gotta go," he throws back at Ryan and Esposito, jerking his thumb towards Kate with a delighted grin, before following his stunning partner out onto the street, leaving the boys floundering, mouths gaping like guppies.

_TBC..._


	20. Chapter 20 - Teamwork

**Chapter 20: Teamwork**

_Previously…_

_"Is this what you guys do on your weekends off? Meet for coffee?" asks Ryan, looking vaguely put out not to be included, if that is the case._

_"Among…_other _things," replies Kate, cryptically, while Castle blurts out "Alexis had a problem," at the exact same time, making them both look as guilty as sin._

_Kate's cool statement about them meeting to do 'other things' draws a surprised look from Castle, since her coy reply really isn't helping matters if they're still trying to be discreet._

_"I—I needed a female perspective on things…Alexis…so…" he babbles, before trailing off, giving Kate an apologetic shrug, because they're bombing and they both know it._

_"And you called Beckett?" asks Espo, disbelievingly, giving Castle a dead-eyed stare._

_Castle is offended on Kate's behalf. "_Yes_, I called Beckett. She's a…_girl _and pretty good at helping my daughter when she has a...a problem," he stammers, remaining non-specific about the nature of the problem._

_"It's okay, Castle. You don't have to defend my feminine skills to these two," drawls Kate, before going in for the kill. "Espo has cried on my shoulder over Lanie many times and Ryan…well, when Ryan needed a little personal advice about Jenny's—"_

_"I think we get the picture," interrupts Ryan, holding up his hand to silence Kate, before his own dirty laundry gets aired in public. _

_"Beckett makes a great woman when the need arises."_

_Castle's face goes red from the effort of holding in his laughter at the unconsciously dirty, funny remark Ryan has just made._

_Kate hops down off her stool with a smirk and gathers her bag onto her shoulder. "Well, speaking of _needs arising_…" she says, giving Castle's body a slow, thorough once over. "I really have to get going," she tells the flummoxed detectives, winking at Castle._

_Castle sits rooted to his stool, heart sinking for a couple of seconds as he watches his partner walk away, before Kate stops by the door, turns back to him and says, "You comin', Castle? We have to change for dinner and we're already..._tight _for time."_

_Castle scrambles down off his stool and is by Kate's side in seconds. "Sorry, guys. You heard the lady. Gotta go," he throws back at Ryan and Esposito, jerking his thumb towards Kate with a delighted grin, before following his stunning partner out onto the street, leaving the boys floundering, mouths gaping like guppies._

* * *

They get a few yards down the street and then they start laughing, laughing hard and running, holding hands tightly to stay together as they weave though the late afternoon crowd, absolutely no idea where they're headed, purely driven on by a shared need for privacy.

"Did you see Ryan's face when you threatened to reveal—" yelps Castle, his voice getting higher and higher until he loses it, breaking into a coughing fit, tears beading in his eyes.

"I know, right? He looked nauseous, poor thing," giggles Kate, doubling over even as they continue to run.

One block further on and they have to slow down, lungs burning, faces pink from laughing and the garbled chatter they've been exchanging as they stumble together along the sidewalk trying to put some distance between themselves and their eternally nosy co-workers.

"Think we're safe?" asks Castle, looking back over his shoulder as they slow to a fast paced walk.

Kate drops his hand and turns around completely to walk backwards for a few steps, tucking flyaway hair behind her ears as she does so. Castle thinks he's never seen her look so beautiful or carefree in all the time he's known her. He could stare at her all day long, but then tell him something he doesn't already know.

"I think we lost 'em," she nods, rotating back around to face the direction they're travelling in.

Castle takes a deep breath and slings his arm around her shoulders this time, instead of taking her hand, and when he looks down he catches her startle in surprise at this happy gesture, before she recovers enough to slip her arm around his waist and tuck herself into his side, an almost goofy grin playing at her lips. He lets his breath go and begins to relax.

They bump hips and thighs as they meander down the street in silence, both getting used to the feeling of being this close – the physical sensation and the practicalities of moving as a unit, as well as the deeper inferences of what it means to walk this way – wrapped around once another like a couple of teenagers on a sunny day out in the park.

Castle's heart swells at the wonderfulness of it all, bursting with, only slightly tentative, happiness because Kate didn't attempt to hide or deny them in front of the boys. If anything she did the exact opposite, poking the bear with her teasing remarks.

* * *

When they reach the next crosswalk, Kate flexes her fingers against Castle's side and he sucks in his stomach muscles, making a mental note to hit the gym next week. "So…dinner?" she asks, reminding him that today isn't over, that they're spending the entirety of Sunday together at her suggestion.

"Yeah," agrees Castle with interest, remembering her parting comment to the boys. "I didn't realize we had reservations…or was that all for effect?"

Kate laughs, briefly resting her head against his shoulder, fingers curling through his belt loop. "I was kidding. Those two are so easy to rile up. But I can make reservations somewhere if you'd like?"

Castle grins at her devilish sense of humor, so glad to be _this_ side of the joke for a change. "You know what I'd really like?"

Kate gives him a slightly nervous look. "Hmm. Should I ask? What...what's that?"

"I'd like a genuine continuation of a normal, run-of-the-mill, Kate Beckett Sunday."

"Really?" asks Kate, a little surprised. She assumed he'd insist on something fancy or that they went out at least, like a proper date.

"Yeah. I really would. So tell me...what would that look like?"

Kate kicks a stone, sending it hurtling towards the curb. "Well…according to you, I never eat. _So_…it might mean you going to bed hungry for once," she teases, grinning up at him in that clever, cat-that-got-the-cream way he's recently discovered she has.

_I would happily go to bed hungry, so long as it's with you,_ he thinks to himself, managing by some miracle not to say these words out loud.

"Me and my big mouth," he replies instead, playfully bumping Kate's hip with his own.

"So, what's the reality?" he asks a couple of seconds later, when Kate falls silent and fails to clue him in any further.

"Reality?" she asks absently, her mind clearly having wandered elsewhere.

"Sunday night…food? You know, the stuff we _eat_ to keep us alive."

"Oh! Oh, yeah, that. Sorry, I was miles away. I order in," she says, laughing at the look of utter relief on Castle's face.

"Preference?"

"Just whatever takes my fancy. Tonight I'll even let you choose. My treat."

"And then?"

"I eat, maybe do a little ironing, cleaning, pay bills, get ready for the week…whatever…but I'll spare you that," she laughs, leaning in against him, a little bashful at the paucity of glamour in her private life, perhaps. "I think watching me do paperwork is enough of a price to pay for following me around. I won't make you watch me do chores as well."

Castle doesn't reply, though it's on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he'd gladly watch her awake or asleep, doing something or nothing at all. He doesn't care, just so long as he gets to be near her, and if that makes him a sap then so be it.

* * *

He's getting a much clearer picture from all of this – the time he's spent with her today and her description of her evening - just how lonely her weekends off must be. Sure she meets Lanie sometimes he knows. God he even hijacked their lunch yesterday for his own ends. But since both women work shifts and on-calls, they're not always available to one another at the same time. She sees her dad once a week for brunch, but other than that her life is work and then time off spent mostly alone, taking care of chores and spending time hunting down antique thimbles of all things, a hobby he knew nothing about until today. No wonder she made friends with Marvin the clock guy. It makes him sad to think that this beautiful, vibrant, interesting, intelligent woman has so little in her life outside of work. He wants to fix it, because he always wants the best for her, and yet she's so self-sufficient, he doesn't know if she'd think her life is in any way broken if he pointed any of this out. Maybe she even likes it this way – solitary, contained, uncomplicated. That thought makes him uneasy, because his life is anything but.

By a mile his life is so different in comparison – he needs people around him or he gets lonely and bored. Living with his mother and daughter has meant that this is rarely a problem. But he wonders just how Kate will cope with having more people around her in addition to him, if she's ready to adjust to the intrusion of family into her life. He is kind of a package deal.

The fact that his thoughts are even leaning in this direction is a sign though. A sign that forgiveness is on the horizon, that the hurt she's caused him and the pain of their lies to one another is starting to fade already. He wants things so badly to be okay between them that he'd step over almost anything to get them there.

Kate lifts her head from his shoulder and squeezes his arm before he can think how to broach the subject of his family with her. "We could watch a movie if you want," she suggests, a little hope in her voice. "And then…"

She trails off, running out of certainty.

"_Then?_" prompts Castle, tightening his arm around her shoulders to protect them against the slew of oncoming pedestrian traffic.

Kate slows them down to a stop and then she steps in front of him, bringing her hands to rest on his chest. She looks up into his face, a serene, open look in her eyes, hopeful and maybe just a fraction hesitant. "Would you like to stay with me?" she asks, biting her lip. "Stay over, I mean. Tonight."

Castle nods slowly, his eyes suddenly moist, his throat tight. "Kate…I would really like that."

Her relief is instant and total. She smiles one of _those_ smiles – the kind that makes him want to grab the nearest camera in order to capture her face for all eternity, the kind that makes him want to spend the rest of his life with her if he gets to bear witness to this level of beauty for the rest of his days, the kind that makes him think he can hear choirs of angels singing when she beams at him like that.

"Good. Then that's settled," she murmurs intimately, patting his chest with one hand, while she rests the other on his shoulder for balance as she stretches up on tiptoe to gently kiss the side of his mouth.

Her lips are warm and soft against his, and he grips her hips, desperately wanting more. But the kiss is brief, in deference to their surroundings. She lets her body slide down the front of his as she slowly sinks back to the ground, and Castle is forced to suppress a moan as the contours of her amazing figure skate over the contours of his, making him hyperaware of just how womanly she really is. The guys have no idea.

"Let's go home," she suggests, offering him her hand, before towing him in a daze across the street towards the nearest subway entrance.

_TBC..._

* * *

_A/N: Hope everyone has a great weekend. :)_


	21. Chapter 21 - The Crazy Up Ahead

_A/N: Thank you for sticking with me and for sharing your thoughts._

* * *

**Chapter 21: The Crazy Up Ahead**

_Previously…_

_Kate slows them down to a stop and then she steps in front of him, bringing her hands to rest on his chest. She looks up into his face, a serene, open look in her eyes, hopeful and maybe just a fraction hesitant. "Would you like to stay with me?" she asks, biting her lip. "Stay over, I mean. Tonight."_

_Castle nods slowly, his eyes suddenly moist, his throat tight. "Kate…I would really like that."_

_Her relief is instant and total. She smiles one of those smiles – the kind that makes him want to grab the nearest camera in order to capture her face for all eternity, the kind that makes him want to spend the rest of his life with her if he gets to bear witness to this level of beauty for the rest of his days, the kind that makes him think he can hear choirs of angels singing when she beams at him like that._

_"Good. Then that's settled," she murmurs intimately, patting his chest with one hand, while she rests the other on his shoulder for balance as she stretches up on tiptoe to gently kiss the side of his mouth._

_Her lips are warm and soft against his, and he grips her hips, desperately wanting more. But the kiss is brief, in deference to their surroundings. She lets her body slide down the front of his as she slowly sinks back to the ground, and Castle is forced to suppress a moan as the contours of her amazing figure skate over the contours of his, making him hyperaware of just how womanly she really is. The guys have no idea._

_"Let's go home," she suggests, offering him her hand, before towing him in a daze across the street towards the nearest subway entrance._

* * *

Her apartment seems so empty…or rather quiet. Because, sure, her things are here; all of her things that he's seen before and yet never really _seen_ as clearly as he does now. But it's the quality of the silence that strikes him – heavy as a wool blanket, all encompassing, total. It's as if she lives in this building completely alone; like some post-apocalypse survivor. And for Manhattan, it's quite something to find yourself this isolated, this solitary – no cooking smells, no arguments, no loud music, babies crying or doors slamming, not so much as a squeaky floorboard to break the overarching hush.

It's unnerving.

Kate, either oblivious or habituated, drops her keys on the coffee table with a noisy clatter and her bag on a chair, remaining on the move through her apartment as she does so, from the front door towards her quirky kitchen; one fluid streak of color. She liberates two bottles of water from the refrigerator and turns around looking for Castle, ready to offer him one of the bottles.

She finds him still standing inside the entryway, eyes trained on her bookcase.

"Hey?" she says quietly, twisting the cap off one bottle with a snap and taking a long swig. "You okay?" she asks, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand to catch the drips that coat her lips. The shock of the cold makes her slightly out of breath, makes her eyes water too.

"Yeah. Yeah…sorry, I just—"

Castle approaches quickly, meeting her in the middle of the room to take the drink she holds out to him. He takes a sip of his own water and ends up downing half the bottle in one go before he draws breath to speak again. "It's so quiet here. I never noticed before," he explains, looking around the apartment.

Kate looks around too, trying to see what Castle sees. "I like it like this," she says, taking another drink. It's a warm evening and with the running they did earlier and the oppressive heat down on the subway platform, she's glad of the hydration. "Helps me think…unwind after work. There's only so much of Ryan and Espo's bickering I can take some days before I feel as if my head is about to explode."

Castle feels that little niggle at the back of his brain return, the one that makes him want to ask her if she's sure she's ready for life with him – noisy, messy, filled with people who aren't used to respecting your space, your privacy or keeping their opinions and advice to themselves. Okay, so that's mostly his mother, but still, she'll be all over this the second he brings Kate back to the loft for so much as a sandwich. He tamps down his unease and manages to follow her back to the kitchen.

Kate opens a drawer and pulls out a stack of takeout menus. She fans them out across the countertop in front of Castle, tapping the shiny flyers with her neat, short nails. "Take a look. See what you feel like. If you can't find anything there—"

He's staring down at the array of garish, badly laid out, cheaply designed pieces of print when he feels her hand on his arm, fingers still cold and a little damp from the water bottle sliding over his skin. He shivers involuntarily at the sudden, surprising contact and looks up just in time to find her kissing him softly, a light press of her lips to his, a gentle nudge of her nose against his cheek, before she smiles to herself and withdraws.

"Gotta go to the bathroom. Make yourself at home. There's wine. White in the chiller and red in the rack," she throws over her shoulder, padding off towards the bedroom and en suite, he assumes, in her flat, gold sandals.

* * *

When Kate reemerges from the bedroom five minutes later, she has changed out of the red skinny jeans and the purple flowing top he thought took years off her, and into a pair of skintight black leggings and a loose grey tee that's already hanging off one shoulder. Her feet are now bare and his mouth goes dry as he wonders what on earth she's wearing beneath the soft grey t-shirt, since there's no sign of a strap at her shoulder to indicate that she kept her bra on. And if the last outfit took years off her, then this one makes her look as if she should still be living in a college dorm. He shifts on his feet, glad that the counter is between them, as he feels his own jeans tighten a little uncomfortably at the sight of the remarkable, chameleon of a woman making her way towards him.

Kate seems oblivious to the effect she's having on him. She looks completely at home. Well she would since it is in fact her home, thinks Castle. But it's more than that. She looks comfortable to be here with him, pleased even. That thought sends ripples of grateful excitement coursing through his body.

"Did you make a decision?" she asks, leaning on the counter across from him and inadvertently giving him a pretty good idea of what's beneath the shirt. Not much.

"_Castle!_"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," he grins sheepishly at being caught ogling.

Kate just laughs and shakes her head, her cheeks warming nicely with a delicate tinge of blush when they continue to stare at one another for just a few heartbeats longer than usual.

And God is her apartment ever quiet.

"Rick? Food? Did you decide?" Kate finally prompts, breaking the silence when she can't handle the tension arcing between them anymore.

Castle coughs and shakes himself out of his love-sick stupor long enough to speak. But first he taps his fingers on top of the takeout menus in an attempt to buy some time, trying to look halfway focused while he musters his thoughts. "Yeah, uh. So, I'm thinking you must have a secret longing for—"

He glances up to find Kate staring at his mouth.

"What?" he asks, self-consciously bringing his fingers up to touch his own lips.

"No. No, nothing. You're fine. Go on," she encourages, looking at the flyer he has on the top of the stack, sporting a press-lipped grin like butter wouldn't melt. "I have a secret longing for…?" she repeats, part prompt, part tease, positively smirking at him now.

"Italian," he replies with a release of air, watching the delight on her face as she toys with him.

"And you deduced this how?" she challenges, leaning even closer, her chin resting on one hand, the other laid out flat on top of the takeout menu right next to his, pinkie to pinkie.

"_Well_…I looked at all the available evidence," he explains, spreading the menus out again, "and this one had the most wear and tear."

"Wear and tear? That's all you've got? Kind of circumstantial don't you think?" she teases, all Detective Beckett for a second or two.

Castle takes up her challenge, rapidly listing off the rest of the assembled evidence as he sees it. "Okay, well, there's butter stains from your garlic bread order, a little marinara sauce from that chicken strozzapreti you love so much. You were obviously in such a hurry to eat that the flyer was still out on the counter _after_ the food arrived indicating both haste and eagerness. Oh, and you have their number on speed dial in your phone. Need I go on?" he finishes, a little smugly.

Kate lets out a surprised peel of laughter, quickly covering her mouth with her hand. "Shut up. Am I that easy to read?" she asks, skirting round him toward the wine rack, poking him in the ribs as she passes.

Castle flinches away from her marauding finger, chuckling. "Actually, no. No, you are definitely a closed book, Detective. One of _the_ most difficult reads I have ever attempted. Though rewarding nonetheless," he adds, to soften the blow of his nonetheless truthful statement.

Kate stills with her back to him for a couple of seconds before she turns around. "I'm sorry," she replies, coming towards him with a bottle of Barolo clutched to her chest and two balloon wine glasses cradled in her other hand.

Yes, definitely naked beneath the shirt, he observes, as the soft cotton leaves little to the imagination with the wine bottle pulling the fabric tight across her breasts.

"I'm…I'm sorry I've been such a holdout for so long, Castle. You didn't deserve that."

"Hey," he soothes, taking the bottle from her and finally the corkscrew she pulls out of a drawer too. "I behaved like an ass at times. Don't think I don't know that."

"Yeah, maybe. In the beginning. But you stopped being an ass a long time ago and I continued to hold back…to…to keep you out. Sometimes I don't know what's good for me until it's too late," she admits, leaning on her elbows to watch him open the wine.

"Who's saying this is too late? Hmm? More like just in time," he assures her, tearing off the metal cap and then spearing the cork with the tip of the butterfly-style wine opener.

"Forgiving to a fault, Castle," she muses, sounding a little sorry for him, even though he knows she's grateful for this selfless quality of his; for his soft, sentimental heart.

He shrugs. "Does it matter, if I get the girl in the end?"

Kate lets her hand run over his forearm in a thoughtful, comforting gesture, before she withdraws it to let him finish removing the cork. "It matters that you deserve better. From me of all people."

* * *

They both fall silent while he pours two glasses of red and then offers one of them to Kate.

"Thanks," she murmurs, a shy smile lighting up her face. "Should we toast?" she asks, revealing just how momentous tonight is for them.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" he asks instead, pouring out his innermost fears along with the wine, it would appear.

"Ready?" she repeats, frowning in miscomprehension at his sudden serious demeanor. "Castle, what is this about? You've been quiet ever since we got here. Ready for what?"

Castle runs a hand through his hair and down over the back of his neck, displaying his discomfort at bringing up the subject. "The way you live…it's—"

He looks around, and so Kate does too, trying to see what her partner is seeing, what he's getting at.

"What? I don't get it? My place is too…what? Too small?"

"No! No, it's nothing to do with your apartment. Not really."

"Then what?"

"It's…your life is so quiet, Kate. So ordered. And mine…"

"Is?"

"Isn't."

"Castle, unless you're asking me to move in with you today, which, for the record, I would say no to—"

"Why?"

"Why would I say no? Are you…are you _asking_?" she balks, her eyes widening in surprise if he is.

"No."

Kate looks relieved and she shrugs. "Then…it's a moot point."

"But if I had asked you to move in with me you would have said no? To be clear."

"Yes."

"Yes you would have said no or you would have said yes?"

"Castle," sighs Kate, becoming exasperated by their circular conversation. "Can we order food before we get into this any further?"

"Only if we can…continue to discuss it."

"We will. I promise," assures Kate, giving him a consoling smile. "So, still want that Italian?"

* * *

By the time the food is delivered, Castle has managed to get his point off his chest. They're sitting at opposite ends of the sofa, attempting to do the adult thing – talk their concerns through before things progress any further.

"It's far too soon to talk about moving in for either of us, and you know it," chides Kate, swiftly adding, "even if your enthusiasm is kind of sweet."

"You were the one who brought it up," he points out, getting a Beckett glare for his honesty. "So...my enthusiasm is sweet?" he adds swiftly, grinning like an adorable little boy, dimples showing on his cheeks, as he tries to stay in her good books.

"Yes, you know it is," she tells him, poking his shin with her bare toes in faint exasperation. "So what is it you're worried I'm not ready for?"

He thinks for a second and then says, "Melding."

"Melding? Melding what exactly?"

"Our lives."

Kate sits up straighter on the sofa and then she picks up a throw pillow and hugs it to her chest. "Castle, where have you been these past four years? We might not live together in a conventional sense but we've been living in each other's pockets for a long time now. I know your mom and Alexis pretty well, you've met my dad, you know _way_ more about everyone I work with than I do, my friends are your friends, we eat together all the time…"

"Not the same."

"As?"

"Full on crazy."

Kate laughs, a big, shoulder-shaking kind of a laugh that reaches its eye-watering peak just as a loud knock sounds at her front door, interrupting this anxious, slightly hysterical heart-to-heart.

_TBC..._


	22. Chapter 22 - Feet Under The Table

_A/N: Thank you for making me laugh with your versions of who might be at the front door and for sticking with this. I'll round it up soon, I promise. The chatty character behavior is kind of getting in the way of plot right now. But I'm posting what I have to keep the story moving. And to quote Lou, "Plot? Who needs plot? We have Caskett inching towards each other!" LOL_

* * *

**Chapter 22: Feet Under The Table**

_Previously…_

_"It's far too soon to talk about moving in for either of us, and you know it," chides Kate, swiftly adding, "even if your enthusiasm is kind of sweet."_

_"You were the one who brought it up," he points out, getting a Beckett glare for his honesty. "So...my enthusiasm is sweet?" he adds swiftly, grinning like an adorable little boy, dimples showing on his cheeks, as he tries to stay in her good books._

_"Yes, you know it is," she tells him, poking his shin with her bare toes in faint exasperation. "So what is it you're worried I'm not ready for?"_

_He thinks for a second and then says, "Melding."_

_"Melding? Melding what exactly?"_

_"Our lives."_

_Kate sits up straighter on the sofa and then she picks up a throw pillow and hugs it to her chest. "Castle, where have you been these past four years? We might not live together in a conventional sense but we've been living in each other's pockets for a long time now. I know your mom and Alexis pretty well, you've met my dad, you know way more about everyone I work with than I do, my friends are your friends, we eat together all the time…"_

_"Not the same."_

_"As?"_

_"Full on crazy."_

_Kate laughs, a big, shoulder-shaking kind of a laugh that reaches its eye-watering peak just as a loud knock sounds at her front door, interrupting this anxious, slightly hysterical heart-to-heart._

* * *

Castle stretches out, allowing himself to sink back against the sofa cushions as he listens to the quiet exchange taking place over by the front door, legs extending out like train tracks in front of him until they disappear beneath the coffee table. His new loafers are pinching a little, he suddenly realizes, glad that Kate cared enough to notice his shoes were new and insist that they took a cab instead of walking this morning. He doesn't want to think about the blisters he might have now if they'd walked for blocks and blocks to reach the Antiques Market. Because no matter how romantic a notion it seemed at the time - strolling hand-in-hand along sunlit Manhattan streets with his lady detective - there is absolutely nothing romantic about crippling blisters.

"I have food," the woman in question declares triumphantly on her way past him into the kitchen, holding up a large paper sack of wonderfully aromatic containers as evidence. "Think you can handle helping me dish up a couple of bowls of pasta?" she teases, eyebrows dancing playfully as she carefully places the food down onto the counter.

Castle immediately gets up from his comfy spot on the sofa to follow her into the kitchen, a sappy, eager grin on his face at Kate's lighthearted tone as much as her invitation to help. He hovers across from her with his wine glass in one hand, watching her every gesture and movement as if he's never laid eyes on such a fascinating creature before.

"I like you like this," flies out of his mouth before he can think to edit himself.

Kate chokes out a surprised laugh, but then just carries on unpacking the food, sending him furtive little glances every once and a while.

"You didn't like me before?" she says quietly, at length, before slowly raising her lashes to look up at him.

"No. No, what I mean is I like you _more_…_better_…oh, God Rick just throw yourself in that hole you're digging and cover it over while you're at it," he tells himself aloud, earning a snort of amusement from Kate.

God how he loves making this woman laugh.

"I like you like this too," she admits, after a silent moment of contemplation. "You're—"

"Discombobulated?" he offers, pulling a funny face.

"No, you're _you_…only more," she says, with her head tilted to one side, offering him a lopsided grin. "And slightly nervous, if I'm not mistaken, which is…kind of hilarious," she admits, giving him a smile that bares all of her teeth. "Considering some of the crazy situations we've found ourselves in."

"Am not," declares Castle, standing up straighter, attempting to use his height and manly stature to debunk her assertion that he is in any way nervous or feeling out of his depth, even when it's patently clear to both of them that he is.

"Okay, then," grins Kate, plating up the garlic bread. "The man is not nervous at all," she sing-songs to herself, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing.

"Are you _mocking me_, Detective?" he demands, rounding the island with his hands outstretched, fingers wiggling ready to tickle.

"Hot food!" bargains Kate, backing around the island to get away from him, keeping their dinner between herself and her partner.

Castle immediately stands down at the mention of food. "You definitely know the way to a man's heart, Beckett."

"Mmm. Through his stomach," she mutters reflexively, concentrating on spooning the last of his spaghetti carbonara out in to a pre-warmed bowl.

"Actually, these days it's more likely in through the groin and up along the femoral artery," Castle replies, a little smugly.

Kate's head shoots up at his retort and she sticks her tongue out at him. "I'll be surprised if you don't _clog up_ your femoral artery with the amount of cheese that's in this sauce," she fires back, tapping the side of the bowl with her serving spoon.

"Already thinking about my health, Beckett? So sweet."

Kate blushes, but doesn't deny anything. "We've already wasted the best part of four years. I'd like you around for the next forty. So maybe I am," she admits, with a shy, off-hand shrug.

Castle stares at her in surprise and then he lightly taps one ear. "Let's go eat. I think I might be getting a little lightheaded. My hearing doesn't seem to be working right. I could swear you just said you wanted me around for the next forty years."

"Clown," murmurs Kate, picking up her own bowl and propelling him towards the sofa ahead of her, where she's laid out napkins and cutlery so that they can sit and eat in the most informal, most authentic, Kate Beckett Sunday style.

* * *

Kate sits at one end of the sofa with her legs crossed in a quasi yoga position, her bowl of pasta balanced on her calves and thighs. That image of her in college, before all the pain and the darkness and heartache entered her life to divert her from her chosen path, returns to sharp focus once again for Castle as he watches her settle herself and begin to eat, her shirt hanging off her shoulder, her hair casually tucked behind her ears. He imagines he can see her as she was back then – lighter, happier, without the intimate knowledge of hundreds of needless deaths, including that of her own mother, to weigh on her shoulders, to fill her head with images no good human should have to carry round with them, to put that burning spark of darkness and determination behind her eyes.

He's tempted to ask her where she thinks she'd be right now if her life had carried on as planned – Stanford, law school, supreme court justice – would she even be living on the East Coast by now? The world would have been her oyster he's sure, without her personal quest for justice anchoring her to these shores. But they're having so much fun and he doesn't want to ruin the mood. These questions will keep for another time.

He finds himself experiencing an unexpected surge of happiness as it suddenly dawns on him that there will be other times - other nights like this, at home doing nothing more than hanging out, nights spent cuddling on the sofa, mornings waking beside her in bed even, if he plays his cards right. His brain begins to draw elaborate pictures for him – coffee and croissants with the Sunday papers scattered across the comforter, holding her hand in a movie theater, kissing her senseless under a big old tree in the park during a summer rainstorm, before sharing a steamy, hot shower at home to get the chill out of their bones...and other, less practical reasons.

"What?" asks Kate, suddenly startling Castle out of his introspective fantasy.

"Hmm?" he murmurs, looking up from the twirl of pasta wound round his fork, now threatening to slide back off.

"You're thinking over there and—" Kate pauses for a second, chewing her lip nervously.

Castle doesn't prompt her, hoping he won't have to explain the jumble of thoughts tumbling around inside his head – both dark and light - if she just decides to let it go.

"You looked a little…pensive, I suppose. Sad maybe? I just wondered…"

She returns to eating, leaving the sentence hanging, unfinished, for him to fill in the blanks however he likes: as much or as little or nothing at all.

"Later. I promise," he says quietly, giving her a smile. "How about we finishing eating and choose a movie?"

"So…not now, but definitely later?" repeats Kate, pushing him in a way that is uncharacteristic for her, since she's usually the first one to back off from probing anyone's thoughts, at the risk they will expect the same unguarded honesty from her, he supposes.

Castle palms her bare ankle. Wrapping his fingers around it he squeezes and then tugs a little. "Yes, later. I keep my promises, Kate," he assures her, his response loaded with meaning, especially when he meets her eyes and holds her gaze. Neither of them flinches for once.

Kate unexpectedly moans at the pleasant pressure he continues applying to her Achilles, and Castle chuckles quietly when she hovers her fork in midair to enjoy the sensation, letting her head fall back against the cushions and her eyes slip closed, her pasta forgotten.

"Hey," he says, smoothing his thumb over her arch to get her attention, which tickles and ends up with her yelping and trying to pull her foot out of his grasp. "Finish eating and I'll give you a proper foot massage while we watch something. How's that sound?"

From the look on Kate's face it sounds pretty damn good, especially considering where things stood between them just a couple of days ago.

"You might just have found the way to _my_ heart," replies Kate, lowering her lashes and then bravely raising them again to look him in the eye, her cheeks turning the color of ripe plums.

Castle doesn't reply to her statement, though there are so many ways he could run with her remark. He herds all the cocky, cheesy, creepy, funny, sappy remarks that flood his brain where Kate Beckett's heart is concerned, and he does the grown-up thing for once – he keeps his smart mouth shut.

"What? No comeback?" taunts Kate, knowing she's just presented him with something of an open goal.

"Nope," replies Castle, fighting back a smile, though he suspects she can see right through him.

"I don't believe you have nothing to say to that," she prods, ducking her head and spearing a spiral of her own pasta with deft precision.

She's grinning at him even as she chews her food when he finally looks up at her.

"What would you like me to say, Detective?" he asks, his voice dripping honey.

Kate laughs, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment at his tone and its inference. She's worked herself into this conversational cul-de-sac and now she needs to find an elegant way out or end up looking foolish.

"I don't know," she hedges, stabbing another piece of strozzapreti and dangling it above her bowl while she thinks about which way to leap – Castle's trademark safety net: humor, or her own route which usually involves ignoring personal issues at all cost.

"Come on, Kate. Don't be shy," he taunts, poking her knee with his socked toes.

And since when did he have both legs up on her sofa, lounging back against the cushions in that enticing manner?

"Okay," she grins, a little feral, a lot predatory. "But I really think _you're_ the one being shy here, Castle."

* * *

She's up and out of her seat before he can think of a retort, her mostly empty bowl abandoned on the coffee table as she streaks past him. She returns with the bottle of wine in her hand before he can get the words out to ask her where she's going.

"Top up?" she asks, the picture of innocence, as she balances the neck of the bottle just so, without touching the rim of his wine glass.

Once she's topped up her own wine she sits down again, closer to him this time, the bottle abandoned to the edge of the coffee table.

Castle's bowl now sits beside Kate's, his pasta gone. Their garlic bread is but a collection of crumbs on their plates, but they ignore all of this detritus in favor of each other.

"Remember when we were up on the bridge the other night?" says Castle, stretching his arm out along the back of the sofa.

Kate stiffens, her eyes suddenly wary of this particular memory. She honestly felt as if she was fighting for her life up on the bridge. But she stuffs all of the bad thoughts down and takes a leaf out of her partner's playbook for once. "Yeah, you were one tough crowd. I remember that much," she says, trying to keep the mood light.

Castle laughs quietly. "Hey, how about you come here?" he suggests, stroking her bare shoulder with his fingers, beckoning her into his side.

Kate immediately crawls along the sofa to tuck herself up against him. She doesn't need asking twice. He puts his arm around her and leans in to kiss her temple, lingering there for several seconds with his lips pressed to her hairline, as if being able to perform this gesture means so much.

Kate feels a tightness gather in her chest and a potent cocktail of excitement, love and nerves begin to churn in her stomach. "I thought I'd lost you," she admits, hoarsely, the fingers of one hand clutching the front of his shirt, one tiny button pressing hard into her palm.

"It was touch and go there for a while, I'll admit. I can't stand lies, Kate. They're…destructive, poisonous, so—"

"Shhh. I know," she whispers, touching her finger to his lips. "No more lies, I promise."

_TBC..._


	23. Chapter 23 - Making Up And Making Out

_A/N: Aiming for one more after this. Hang in there. _

* * *

_**Chapter 23: Making Up And Making Out**_

_Previously…_

_"Remember when we were up on the bridge the other night?" says Castle, stretching his arm out along the back of the sofa._

_Kate stiffens, her eyes suddenly wary of this particular memory. She honestly felt as if she was fighting for her life up on the bridge. But she stuffs all of the bad thoughts down and takes a leaf out of her partner's playbook for once. "Yeah, you were one tough crowd. I remember that much," she says, trying to keep the mood light._

_Castle laughs quietly. "Hey, how about you come here?" he suggests, stroking her bare shoulder with his fingers, beckoning her into his side._

_Kate immediately crawls along the sofa to tuck herself up against him. She doesn't need asking twice. He puts his arm around her and leans in to kiss her temple, lingering there for several seconds with his lips pressed to her hairline, as if being able to perform this gesture means so much._

_Kate feels a tightness gather in her chest and a potent cocktail of excitement, love and nerves begin to churn in her stomach. "I thought I'd lost you," she admits, hoarsely, the fingers of one hand clutching the front of his shirt, one tiny button pressing hard into her palm._

_"It was touch and go there for a while, I'll admit. I can't stand lies, Kate. They're…destructive, poisonous, so—"_

_"Shhh. I know," she whispers, touching her finger to his lips. "No more lies, I promise."_

* * *

"But—" Castle protests.

"Shhh," Kate soothes again, stroking her thumb over the rough stubble on his chin, fascinated by doing so. "Castle, I know what you're going to say," she protests, when he tries to take another pass at the subject.

He leans away from her a little, loosening his arm from around her shoulders so that he can look her in the eye. "You sure about that?"

Kate nods, her gaze softening a little, though she remains deeply serious. "Yeah, you're going to say that…that I'm…closed off, distant, too...too self-sufficient, that I withhold too much and that sometimes that's the same as lying. By omission."

Castle's eyebrows shoot up at this burst of self-awareness. "Wow!" he exclaims, clearly impressed. "Remind me never to question your mind-reading capabilities."

Kate smiles, taking his hand and laying it flat on her thigh. She looks down at her lap to toy with his fingers while she speaks. "Look, I know this is my issue…well, one of them," she adds wryly, giving him a self-depreciating smile. "And I'm working on it, okay. Have been for a while. I'm not where I want to be..._yet_. But I am trying."

"Dr. Burke help you with that?"

Kate nods. "Among other things."

* * *

They simultaneously reach for their wine, draining their glasses fairly quickly, both in need of the alcohol's bolstering effects since this discussion is so far out of their usual comfort zone. In fact, Castle's fairly sure their comfort zone has been completely obliterated over the last couple of days; laid to waste on the personal battle ground they've had to fight through to get at the truth.

Kate tops their glasses up again, and their tongues loosen accordingly.

"He's done a great job...Burke," admits Castle, sliding his arm around her shoulders once more and tugging her back into his side, even though he can feel how stiff she's become at the implied criticism over her faults. "You both have. We wouldn't have made it here otherwise."

Kate allows her head drop onto his shoulder, relaxing a little at Castle's reassurance and praise for a job well done.

"I should clean this stuff up," she says, after a moment or two, indicating their dirty dishes. She tries to force herself up into a sitting position but her partner holds her back.

"Hey, no, stay. _Stay_," he persists, easing her back into his side. "The dishes can wait. Just…take a breath, Kate. For once."

He hears her smile when she speaks, alcohol finally loosening her body and her tongue. "Enjoy the moment, you mean? You going all new age on me, Castle?" she teases.

Castle chuckles, but doesn't deny anything. "Yes. Yes. Let's start…from today. Every fun, sad, poignant, stupid, boring, crazy, silly, shared moment we go through. We'll record them. Write a journal together or something. We'll save them all. For every time we let life go by in the past, for all the things we missed seeing together because we were too afraid to reach out and just…_ask_."

Kate turns her head to look at him, her gaze full of hope at his sudden burst of enthusiasm and conviction that they have a shared future.

"You with me?" he asks, eyes roaming her face, looking for her agreement, checking if she's all in too. "For all the things we're going to share and experience from now on as—"

Castle tips his head to one side and looks at Kate for a long, tender moment, reaching out to skim her cheek with his thumb.

"As?" she prompts, squeezing his hand to regain his attention.

Castle clears his throat and then goes for it. "As a couple," he says, confidently, nailing his colors to the mast.

Kate's response is not one he expects.

"Can I kiss you? I'm going to kiss you now," she tells him enthusiastically, grinning as she gets up onto her knees on the sofa in front of him, sinking into the soft cushions and almost tipping over. "We can put it in the book, I promise," she giggles, bracing her hands on his shoulders, one knee resting between his.

But Castle grasps her wrists and holds her back away from him, causing her expression to crumple in confusion. "Are. You. In." he repeats, not letting her off with the hard stuff until he's sure, until he can see the absolute certainty in her eyes.

She nods eagerly, glancing down at his mouth and then back up into eyes so filled with love and desperate hope that she fears she might drown in them. "Yes. Yes, Castle, I'm in," she whispers throatily, smiling as a tear runs down her cheek when he lets go of her wrists and pulls her to him.

* * *

Who kisses whom tonight is immaterial. And who fell in love with whom first is a debate for another day, and they will debate it, make no mistake, because that's who they are and what they do. But they'll do it together from now on, and that's the point.

Kate moans softly and Castle grunts when her lips meet his in a defining, bruising, hungry kiss. They need this, both of them, after everything they've been through; an emotional journey to hell and back.

"Again," Castle whispers, when she pulls back a fraction, separating her mouth from his so that the warm air caresses their damp skin.

He parts his lips just a Kate leans in to grant his request, brushing her mouth across their softness, and this time he cups the back of her skull, fingers threading through her hair, allowing him to keep her there while he devastates her with the physical embodiment of everything he feels for her, right now in this perfect moment, until neither one of them can breathe.

"That one is definitely going in the book," laughs Kate, smudged and breathless as she collapses into his arms, letting him take her down with him until they're fully lying along the sofa, Kate on top of her partner, his hands on her hips, then her ass, his smile buried in her neck as he laughs with her.

"Gonna be a big book," murmurs Castle, pressing tiny kisses all down her throat until she groans as she squirms and arches against him. "Big, giant book," he mutters, shaking with Kate on top of him as they both dissolve into helpless, wine-induced giggles.

"_Huge_," whispers Kate, as she grazes his jaw with her smile, fingers lazily roaming his sides, hips beginning to undulate to a sexy rhythm no one can hear. She makes her point with a naughty nudge of her lower body against his thigh when she husks out the word 'huge'.

Castle laughs in surprise, high-pitched and giddy, when he feels her pointed little hip thrust.

"So…making out on your sofa? Typical Kate Beckett Sunday?" he asks, hoping he already knows the answer.

"It is now," grins Kate, quirking her eyebrows suggestively.

* * *

They turn onto their sides, legs entwined, content to just stare at one another in silence for a while; touching, fingers tangling and untangling, shy, sappy, love-struck grins on their faces caused by the deep sense of relief at having made it safely ashore after almost being shipwrecked at sea.

"You want a movie?" Castle eventually asks, one hand resting heavily on Kate's hip, the other making bold forays beneath her shirt to graze her stomach with the tips of his fingers, making her shiver and smile, her nipples tightening beneath the light caress of cotton at her partner's touch.

Kate rolls towards him, planting her face in his shoulder. "Think I would rather _be_ in a movie," she mumbles against his shirt, her shoulders shaking as she starts to laugh at her own joke, half of her words lost to the deadening muffle of fabric and the happy, loose drawl of her wine-sloppy words.

Castle splutters when he figures out what she just said. With his mother and Alexis around to 'sotto voce' with one another all the time, his hearing had evolved to near bat-like. "Our first time? No way."

"_No?_" she whines into his neck, giggling even as she tries not to. "You don't think we'll be perfect?" she asks, feigning surprise with a wicked grin on her face that Castle can't see, though he can hear it well enough in her tone.

"_Kate,_" he scolds, her naughty suggestion making him hard, making him growl out her name as need begins to course through him with a familiar, aching throb. Fun like that is for another time, one of the future memories they will make. And he plans on making lots of those with this extraordinary, adventurous, unbelievably sensual woman who just keeps on surprising him lately.

Just not tonight, not their first time.

Kate flops onto her side again, remaining half-draped over him, but now at least able to see his face and breathe. "I'm kidding," she promises, gently tapping his nose. "We can stay here, watch a movie...make out some more…" she suggests, with a playful lift of her eyebrows.

"We could," he agrees, pretending to give her suggestion serious consideration.

"Or you could take me to bed and—" Kate pauses, her eyes shining, her lip drawn between her teeth, a glint of tease, a hint of expectation and a dash of endearing uncertainty just creasing her brow and holding her back a little.

"_And?_ And what, Kate?" he gently prompts, feathering his fingers up and down her spine, feeling as if they're standing on a cliff top together, holding hands, about to leap off into the unknown.

"Let me show you how in this I am," she whispers, walking her fingers up along the placket of his shirt, from tiny button to tiny button; as if they are fairy-sized stepping-stones and the tips of her fingers are tiny fairy feet, carrying her up towards his heart.

Castle casually pillows one muscular arm behind his head, his other hand splayed flat against the small of her back, keeping her tightly pressed against his body as he watches her, attempting to maintain a light and playful tone despite the raging stampede of his heart every time he looks into her eyes, knowing what he knows now about how much she cares for him: that she loves him and wants him as much as he has always wanted her. "I wouldn't want to take advantage," he says quietly, stroking the back of her arm with the tips of his fingers, watching with wonder as goose bumps rise on her skin everywhere he touches.

Kate drops her forehead onto his chest for just a second and then she looks up into his face again. "Too late. You already accepted my invitation to stay over. Besides, I plan on taking advantage of you too," she grins, arching up to seal her mouth against his.

_TBC..._


	24. Chapter 24 - By Morning Light

_A/N: Okay, so those who are familiar with my stories and author's notes will know that when I say how long I imagine a story will run, the final truth is that that's rarely how it plays out. As with this one, it seems the action has taken a sharp right turn and there is a little more story to come. Please bear with me._

* * *

**Chapter 24: By Morning Light**

_Previously…_

_"We can stay here, watch a movie...make out some more…" she suggests, with a playful lift of her eyebrows._

_"We could," he agrees, pretending to give her suggestion serious consideration._

_"Or you could take me to bed and—" Kate pauses, her eyes shining, her lip drawn between her teeth, a glint of tease, a hint of expectation and a dash of endearing uncertainty just creasing her brow and holding her back a little._

_"And? And what, Kate?" he gently prompts, feathering his fingers up and down her spine, feeling as if they're standing on a cliff top together, holding hands, about to leap off into the unknown._

_"Let me show you how in this I am," she whispers, walking her fingers up along the placket of his shirt, from tiny button to tiny button; as if they are fairy-sized stepping-stones and the tips of her fingers are tiny fairy feet, carrying her up towards his heart._

_Castle casually pillows one muscular arm behind his head, his other hand splayed flat against the small of her back, keeping her tightly pressed against his body as he watches her, attempting to maintain a light and playful tone despite the raging stampede of his heart every time he looks into her eyes, knowing what he knows now about how much she cares for him: that she loves him and wants him as much as he has always wanted her. "I wouldn't want to take advantage," he says quietly, stroking the back of her arm with the tips of his fingers, watching with wonder as goose bumps rise on her skin everywhere he touches._

_Kate drops her forehead onto his chest for just a second and then she looks up into his face again. "Too late. You already accepted my invitation to stay over. Besides, I plan on taking advantage of you too," she grins, arching up to seal her mouth against his._

* * *

The sheet glides across her body, soft, well-washed cotton caressing her skin everywhere it touches – arm, hip, thigh, then stomach and breasts when she rolls off her side and onto her back, throwing her arms in the air to stretch. She's achy, but loose limbed, sticky in places and she knows, without even opening them, that her eyes are most likely puffy because she slept so well.

The bed dips and suddenly it feels colder. She presses her eyes tightly shut and then lowers her arms to her sides, trapping what little warmth is left beneath the covers, too exhausted to move another inch.

They left the window open last night – other, more pressing things on their minds during the frequently interrupted journey to bed - and so now the pre-dawn breeze is surprisingly cool after such a hot day. The bathroom door squeaks on unoiled hinges as it swings closed, and Kate smiles. Her partner is still here, in her apartment. They had sex last night for the very first time and they both survived the fall – no explosions, no untimely phone calls, no dead bodies, other miscellaneous interruptions or unexplained episodes of spontaneous combustion to ruin their perfect moment. And it was perfect.

Her skin burns with heat at the memory, her cheeks warming despite the rush of fresh air in through the window. A flood of images and sensations flicker fast and furious through her brain - touching, kissing, everything warm and wet, molten, slow and then desperate, breathless with need and an ache that could only be soothed one way. She showed him that she's in this, just as she promised. He showed her how to love more deeply than any man ever has. She'll never forget last night - how he changed her forever.

Emotion swells within her again, ready to burst out of her chest.

* * *

Kate hears the toilet flush and then water running in the sink - the intimate sounds that come of sharing space with another human being. She would bet her monthly paycheck that Castle put the seat back down. He's too well trained not to.

"Rick?"

"Hey," she hears, when he opens the bathroom door and a thin sliver of light falls across her face, forcing her to turn her head away, but not before Castle catches her smiling, her eyes blinking against the sudden influx of light. "Sorry I woke you," he whispers, unabashed in his nakedness as he begins the path back along the bottom of the bed and round to his own side.

"Could you close the window?" Kate whispers in response, briefly wondering why they're speaking in such hushed tones to one another, though somehow it seems fitting. "M'cold."

Castle closes the window, briefly lingering to look outside at the subtle transformation from night to dawn to day that her apartment building affords over the East Village. The floorboards creak in protest when he shifts his weight, and when he turns round he catches Kate watching him, leaning up on one elbow in bed, a soft smile on her face. She looks tired, sleepy and relaxed.

"I was about to say that I'm beginning to see why the staring thing is creepy. But I changed my mind," he tells her, approaching the bed.

Her expressive eyebrows shoot up in question and she forces herself to look only at his face, not let her eyes wander any further south…right now. "Oh?"

"Mmm, when you look at me like that…Kate Beckett…" he shakes his head in disbelief. "Stare at me as much as you like if it's like that."

She smiles even wider, beauty growing more radiant. "Oh, I intend to," she giggles, as he slides under the covers beside her, immediately making more for the middle of the bed than the half that is now his.

"So, you said something about being cold, detective. We can't have that."

Kate squeaks as Castle wraps his arms around her and drags her further across the bed to engulf her in his large, inexplicably warm frame, dwarfing her own body within the shelter of his.

"How can you still be this warm after visiting my fridge of a bathroom at—" She turns her head to look at the bedside clock. "5.45am?"

"Superpower," murmurs Castle, the word reverberating off the shell of her ear where his lips are currently resting while he warms the rest of her up.

Kate laughs, her whole body shaking with it. And _oh that feels nice!_

"Really? _That's_ the superpower you're claiming? Superhuman heating skills? After last night? You sure about that, Castle?"

The man made her keen, made her cry out his name, and not just once. She's never done that before - call out her lover's name during sex. So Kate has a few _other_ ideas about the superpowers Richard Castle might be said to possess.

"Maybe it's part of my arsenal? Ever think about that?" he asks, sounding more than a little smug.

"I do think about you ass. Does that count?" Kate giggles at her own joke despite the early hour.

"_Beckett!_" exclaims Castle, feigning scandalized, she thinks. But he sounds delighted, truth be known.

"Oh, come on. Like you've never ogled my ass before," she grins, twisting to look back over her shoulder at him. "You perch on my desk, Rick, drinking coffee like butter wouldn't melt, just so you can cop a look while I'm pinning photos of dead people onto the murder board. The whole precinct knows it. It's not some big ol' secret anymore, you know."

Castle nuzzles her neck, making her squirm with delight. "What? Your ass?" he whispers, flicking out his tongue to lick the skin behind her ear.

Kate hisses with pleasure even as she attempts to elbow Castle in the ribs. But he holds her so tightly she can't move, which is a surprise and also unexpectedly erotic. "Jerk," she mumbles, with more affection than any real bite behind the word, letting her limbs go loose beneath his large, exploring hands.

"Eh, that's jerk _dearest_ to you from now on" corrects Castle, nipping at her earlobe.

"Hmm, pet names already? Minefield," mutters Kate on the crest of a yawn, before wiggling to get even more comfortable, if that is at all possible.

* * *

Castle's body feels sensational, better than she could ever have imagined, especially when wrapped around her own. His skin is so smooth, his legs strong and muscular with just the right covering of hair. His biceps make her mouth water and her heart pound, and his ass…she thinks there should be some kind of license required for an ass like that, though she's saving that little nugget for another time, lest he get too cocky. And speaking of, he is no slouch in that department either – skilful, tender, powerful, knowledgeable, he left her a trembling, hot, exhausted mess last night. And he knows it and he didn't gloat, for which he gets extra brownie points.

Kate may have sobbed at one vulnerable point, but he just held her until she felt his own tears run down her back. They embraced one another so tightly - a long, heartfelt apology for all the times they'd caused each other pain, pulled away, denied how they felt, hid or ran or lied. They made peace so that they could have this - today and from now on - a partnership in its fullest sense.

"Hey?" whispers Castle, kissing her shoulder, fingers strumming her hipbone. "You wanna sleep some more? It's early yet."

Kate groans. "I usually get up at six."

"Can you make an exception?"

"You mean be late for work?"

"I feel like I've had so little time with you."

"Castle, we just spent the entire weekend together…more or less."

"Yeah, fighting for most of it," he points out.

"We weren't fighting," disputes Kate, kind of ruining her own argument.

"Excuse me. You were there. I distinctly saw you. Tall, gorgeous, sexy woman who is in love with me. I _saw you_."

Kate giggles. Castle had never heard her do that before they both came clean and figured things out, and now every time she does, he wants to ask her to do it again. It's hypnotizing and endearing and for his ears only, it would appear. It would make him love her more, that giggle, if that were even possible.

"If I'm late they'll know something's up. I'm never late."

"Well, you don't usually spent the night with your partner. That's new."

"And private."

"For now."

"You think they'll guess?"

"I think it doesn't matter what we do, it'll come out eventually."

"Maybe. But that day does not have to be today."

"You do know that we're wasting valuable time arguing when we could be doing that other thing we've discovered we're surprisingly good at."

Kate eases out of his tight embrace to turn over and face him. "We _are_ good at it, aren't we?" she grins, clever and thrilled and sexy all at once.

"Did you ever doubt we would be?" he asks, skimming the length of her spine with his thumb; like a skier over a mogul field he dips and rises.

"No. No, I knew we'd be amazing and…and I—You didn't disappoint."

"There were two of us, Kate."

She gives a wry little chuckle, dipping her head bashfully. "Yeah, there was, wasn't there," she agrees, cheeks staining pink again with the recall of one particularly vivid moment.

* * *

Silence falls on her smile. The bedroom quiet and cool in the semi-darkness.

"Clock is ticking if you're determined to be on time," he gently reminds her, though getting out of bed is the last wish on his list today.

"_Ahhhh!_ I hate this," she moans, letting her forehead fall against his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, now. I'm just teasing," soothes Castle, running his hand over the back of her head, before pressing his lips to her crown, breathing her in - sleep-warmed Kate - his heart full to overflowing with the knowledge that he can be so demonstrative with her now.

They're both naked beneath the sheets, and every touch of skin is tantalizing and electric, making her crave more of all of him. It's too much to ignore now they've crossed the line - her knowledge of him going from pretty fulsome to encyclopedic in the space of one amazing night - and she might just stretch to calling herself addicted already. He's under her skin and wrapped around her heart, that's for sure. But she doesn't want him out. She doesn't even want him to stray too far anymore. And that's new. That's brand new for Kate Beckett.

She jerks her head up, her expression resolute. "You're right."

Castle cups one hand to his ear. "I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?"

Kate huffs out a laugh, patting his bare chest with her hand. "I said you're right, _okay_. We need more time. I _want_ more time with you. Just us, Castle. There's always a phone ringing or…or the boys with some ridiculous interruption. We have _no privacy_."

"Kate?"

His tone is sympathetic, giving, and she lifts her head to look at him knowing that she sounds something close to whiny, which is so unlike her. "Mm?"

He strokes her bare shoulder, flicking his eyes away from the red marks his unshaven chin left the night before on her perfect skin; a swirling mix of guilt and pride and possessiveness tightening his gut for reasons he's sure Kate would disapprove of if he shared them with her. Because, truth is, he's rather pleased he marked her as his. He plans on keeping her. Forever.

"Tell me what you want and I'll make it happen. Okay? Privacy is one thing money can buy."

Kate frowns and chews her lip. Her hair is adorably messy, her eyes sleep-puffed, her cheeks a healthy pink he likes to think he had something to do with. He can see a minor war of indecision play out across her face: that endless battle of duty over personal desire.

"Kate?"

"I'm owed days," she answers slowly, her mind ticking over.

"How many?"

"What if I took two…three…would that—"

Castle kisses her hard and then she laughs, laughs against his mouth, breaking the seal of their lips.

"That's my girl. But how many do you have left to take?" he asks, excited as a child.

"Like seven, eight…I forget. Why?"

"Why? Because from now on you are taking _all_ of your vacation time, Beckett. No excuses. We're gonna need every day you can get your hands on and then some."

She arches her eyebrow, and chases it with a smile she can't quite suppress. "_Oh?_"

"Yep. Pretty soon we'll be needing new passports for all the stamps we're gonna collect."

"Will we now?"

Kate rolls Castle onto his back and crawls on top of him, letting her thighs fall apart either side of his hips. She rests her chin on her hands as they stare in wonder at one another.

Castle tries, but mostly fails, to control the physical excitement of having his muse and lover sprawled across his chest. He catches the delighted look in Kate's eye the second she feels his excitement...rising.

He clears his throat and tries to focus on the question he was about to ask. "When was the last time you took a proper vacation? Hmm? Actually got on an airplane and flew somewhere they have tax-free shopping?"

Kate shakes her head. She's embarrassed to say she can't remember.

"Me either," admits Castle, surprising Kate, who gives him a questioning look. He shrugs. "Spent the last few years waiting for you. How long will it take you to pack?"

"I have to call the Precinct first. Get approval to take a couple of days. But, Castle…I'm talking a few days off at home this time, maybe go for dinner, see a movie, spend some more time in bed together," she admits, shimmying her hips against his own. "Not a long haul vacation or anything."

"I have more than one home, remember? I invited you there once. You turned me down flat, as I recall. How about we fix that?"

Another wash of guilt ripples through Kate's heart like a shiver. "The Hamptons?" she says, to clarify.

"Yeah. It's close, easily opened up for a short stay…unless you have a problem being there. I know I took my ex-wife before and believe me when I tell you what a gross mistake that was."

Kate's eyes light up as a thought occurs. She leans up on her elbows so that she can see Castle better. "I might have a better idea."

"I'm all ears."

"My dad's cabin. You missed out on my recuperation, right? So maybe…maybe we could go up there," she suggests, biting her lip nervously, unsure how he might react, whether it's still too soon. "Lay a few ghosts to rest?"

Castle's answer comes immediately and without reservation. "I would really like that."

"You would?" whooshes out with great relief.

He nods sincerely. "I really would. Back-to-nature-Beckett in tiny shorts and a strappy cami? Where do I sign up?"

Kate can't help but laugh. "Great. Let me call my dad after I clear time with the Captain. You can help me pack while we wait."

This is exactly what they need: more time alone together and a pilgrimage to the site of that lost summer, so that there are no more gaps to fill, no demons for Castle to brood over. They need to flood the past with light - every tiny crack and crevice - to remove the hold that darkness and the unknown has held over them both for far too long.

_TBC..._

* * *

_A/N: Taking a leaf out of AWM's playbook, I plan on adding the 'deleted scene' from their first night together at a later stage. A bonus chapter, if you like. For the moment, I'm just trying to keep things moving before I go on vacation._


	25. Chapter 25 - Flashbacks and Forgiveness

_A/N: An interim chapter to keep things moving. Hope you enjoy. As Cindy said… "And into the woods they go…"_

**_**SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2 OF ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK**_**

* * *

**Chapter 25: Flashbacks and Forgiveness**

_Previously…_

_"I might have a better idea."_

_"I'm all ears."_

_"My dad's cabin. You missed out on my recuperation, right? So maybe…maybe we could go up there," she suggests, biting her lip nervously, unsure how he might react, whether it's still too soon. "Lay a few ghosts to rest?"_

_Castle's answer comes immediately and without reservation. "I would really like that."_

_"You would?" whooshes out with great relief._

_He nods sincerely. "I really would. Back-to-nature-Beckett in tiny shorts and a strappy cami? Where do I sign up?"_

_Kate can't help but laugh. "Great. Let me call my dad after I clear time with the Captain. You can help me pack while we wait."_

_This is exactly what they need: more time alone together and a pilgrimage to the site of that lost summer, so that there are no more gaps to fill, no demons for Castle to brood over. They need to flood the past with light - every tiny crack and crevice - to remove the hold that darkness and the unknown has held over them both for far too long._

* * *

He catches around the waist, fingers splayed wide on either side beneath her short, red leather jacket, searching out warm, bare skin even as he hauls her back against his body. His hips frame hers, dwarfing her, and she lets out a yelp of surprise.

"Can I tell you how much I love you _now_?" Castle growls in her ear, laughing with her when she starts to shake in amusement at his crazy, and totally inappropriate, behavior.

"I don't know why I agreed to this," grumbles Kate, gasping as Castle manages to make contact with her neck, grazing the sensitive skin with his stubbled chin.

"Because you couldn't bear to be apart from me," he supplies, sliding his hands further around her stomach, beneath the hem of her white t-shirt, until they meet in the middle.

And how the hell did he get under her clothing so fast?

"_Really?_" she gasps again, negating any of the force or sarcasm behind the word, when she moans at the spine-tingling sensation of his mouth latching onto her pulse and sucking obscenely.

"Oh, yes. Just admit it, Detective. Or I'll have to interrogate you."

She brings her elbows back to break out of the hold he has on her, squirming free of his embrace just as the elevator doors open. They stumble out one after the other, smoothing down clothing and attempting to lose the goofy grins that keep splitting their faces wide enough to make their cheeks ache.

"Shhh. _Stop!_" she hisses, bumping him with her shoulder when he comes alongside, rolling her eyes while battling back another smile. "I only agreed you could come in with me because Gates needs me to sign off a report before the DA picks it up and this way we can get out of the city quicker. That's the deal for my freedom. The deal for _you_ being here with _me_ is that you _behave_. Understand? Act normal…if that's even possible for you."

"Kate—"

"_Beckett_," corrects Kate, shooting him a reproving glance.

She's nervous and so it's putting her on edge. _He_, on the other hand, is loving it.

"Just…don't make this any more complicated than it needs to be. Okay? We get in and out. Talk to as few people as possible," she counsels.

"You mean the boys."

"After that little incident at the coffee shop, they've got to be paying out on the pool by now," she groans, shoving a hand through her hair at the memory of her own rash behavior.

"So...we say we met down in the hall. A total fluke," offers Castle, deciding to pitch in and ease her pain, if it'll keep her in a good mood for the drive up to her dad's cabin.

"Never gonna fly. Not around here. You don't even have coffee," she points out, gesturing to his empty hands.

"Then I'm all out of suggestions."

"You only came up with one."

"I know. How weird is that."

"Come on, Castle," hisses Kate. "You're my ideas guy."

He shoots her a look of surprise. "You _hate_ my ideas."

"I don't _hate_ them. Not…all of them," she corrects, biting her lip. "And I could really do with a good one right about now."

Castle thinks for a second. "How about if I just go back downstairs and wait for you there?"

"Rick, _no_—" exclaims Kate, reaching for his wrist when he pivots on his heel to head back towards the elevator.

"See…can't bear to be apart from me," he brags, giving her a smug grin.

"Just...shut up…and _behave_," she snaps, rolling her eyes at him in mock exasperation.

* * *

Castle ignores Kate's rules as usual, so some things do remain the same. As for the rest, they're making it up as they go.

"A whole forty-eight hours of freedom," he sing-songs gleefully, as they resume walking towards the bullpen. "_Oh!_ Hey, it'll be like _Orange is the New Black*_. You're on furlough, Detective," he grins, giving her a playful nudge that throws her off her stride.

Kate stops walking to give him a long, hard look. "Larry _slept_ with Piper's best friend Polly. When she was on furlough, he was so guilt-ridden that he couldn't even get it up. This is not Orange is the New Black, Castle. It's nothing remotely like that show," she insists, sounding just a little too freaked for his liking.

He assumes it's being in the precinct with this secret hanging over their heads, in a roomful of gossipy detectives, en route to see a Captain with a nose like a bloodhound.

"I'm Rick," he whispers, closer to her than she'd like for where they are right now. "Not Larry. _Noooooo,_ nothing like Larry."

Kate is just about to respond that he'd better be nothing like Larry, when a voice from behind asks, "Hey, who's Larry?"

They spin in unison.

"Freaking _awesome_," exclaims Ryan, gesturing to Esposito, who has suddenly materialized from out of thin air to join them. "Dude, did you _see_ how they did that? We have to practice more. They're _still_ way better than us."

"You guys should take dance lessons. You'd totally kill it with that ballroom stuff," suggests Esposito, giving them both a long once-over, as if trying to intuit some small change he can't quite put his finger on.

"Thank you for that useless hobby advice, Carrie Ann," replies Kate, witheringly.

"So who's this Larry guy you're arguing over?" asks Esposito, returning to the unwanted topic like a dog with a bone.

"Not Beckett's new boyfriend by any chance?" grins Ryan, eyes as bright as a cheerleader with a new set of pom poms.

Castle's brilliant sense of timing and his genetically endowed flair for the theatrical have rarely been more useful than they are at this precise moment. He widens his eyes to comic proportions, claps his hands to his face in mock horror and exclaims, "Beckett's got a _boyfriend?_" Then he spins to look at Kate and asks, "Who's the lucky guy, _Detective?_"

Kate briefly locks eyes with Castle before she tears them away to respond. "No one any of you would know," she assures the assembled group, giving Castle a derisory shake of the head before she stalks off towards Gates' office.

* * *

"Hmm," muses Castle, watching his girlfriend – is Kate Beckett his girlfriend now – walk away with a slightly exaggerated swing of her hips.

Devil woman.

"_Interesting_," he purrs, Blofeld-style, stroking his chin in lieu of a longhaired white cat.

"What's with her?" asks Esposito, jerking his head after Kate, while all three men watch her walk away. "And why are you even here, man? You do know she's going in there to sign some paperwork and then she's taking off on vacation for a couple days?"

"I do now. We bumped into one another in the lobby."

"So…you didn't know Beckett was going on vacation with some mystery guy?" clarifies Ryan.

"Did _you?_" asks Castle, turning the tables on the boys, since he wants to have to lie to them as little as possible.

"I thought you were a millionaire playboy, bro," interjects Esposito, regarding Castle with disappointment.

"You got that half right," admits Castle, with some reluctance.

"And we both know which half," grins Ryan, fist-bumping his partner.

"All that money and all those women, and yet you're here on the off-chance of a _murder?_"

"Eh…when you put it like that doesn't sound so—"

"_Lame_ is what it sounds, my man," says Espo, slapping Castle on the back. "Even Beckett's seeing some action, so shouldn't you be out there chasing—"

"Even Beckett's what?" comes the clipped, knowing tones of Detective Kate Beckett, riding to Castle's rescue.

"Uh…nothin'," replies Esposito, eyes immediately sliding to Ryan for backup if required.

"That's what I thought," says Kate, shutting down the conversation.

* * *

When Kate turns to look for Castle, she finds him standing by her desk holding one of her little parade of elephants. He's turning it over in his hands, deep in fascination. She can't remember him ever having expressed any interest in her desk ornaments before. Well, not beyond the first week when she told him she'd break all of his fingers if he so much as looked sideways at any of the items on her desk, personal or otherwise.

"Hey," she murmurs, coming alongside to give him a discreet nudge with her shoulder. "You okay?"

He quickly puts the elephant down, looking a little guilty. "Uh…yeah, yeah, I'm…fine," he replies, clearly _not_ fine at all, if the downturn of his mouth and the sadness in those blue eyes are anything to go by.

"No lies, we said," whispers Kate, keeping one eye on the boys, who're now back at their desks, trying to look busy.

"Just…" he shrugs, tugging his mouth into a smile, however wistful.

Kate waits him out, her brows arched in question. "Just?" she repeats, leaving the sentence hanging for him to fill in the rest of the detail. "Come on. Try me," she encourages, tapping the toe of his shoe with her own when he remains silent.

"Memories. Flashback, I guess," he explains, while still not really explaining.

"Flashback to what?"

"So many times in the past, when you walked out that door on someone else's arm."

"Oh."

"Yeah," nods Castle, allowing himself a rueful smile.

"That, and this is the first time we've been back here since…well, since—"

"You found out that I lied to you."

"Yep."

"Okay, well, a couple of points. Firstly, you aren't the only one with memories like that. I had to stand by and watch you walk away with your ex-wife on your arm and then stay away for an entire summer, remember. And I've had to sit at my desk on numerous occasions while you headed out of here on a date with yet another attractive stranger. And that's _before_ we get to Page 6. So, I know how that feels, believe me."

Castle just stares, struck dumb by her candor.

"And second of all," Kate continues, without pausing for breath, "things might have been bad when you came back in here to force me to talk the other night. But this time…this time we are leaving here together, Castle. Okay?"

"You sure about that?" he asks, letting his gaze slide over to where the guys are pretending not to pay them any attention.

Kate takes Castle's arm and turns him round so that the writer is now standing with his back to the two other detectives, shielding her from view. "You want me to make an announcement to this entire precinct about…about our change in…in status, I will do it in a heartbeat, if it will make you happy. But that would most likely mean the end of our partnership."

"I know," he replies, looking down at his shoes.

"Castle, I am not in anyway ashamed of us. I need you to know that. We've been through a lot to get to this point. The thought of being with you…it excites the hell out of me, if you really wanna know the truth," she admits, with an untamable smile, not above blushing, even in her own precinct house.

"It does?" he asks, in a hopeful voice, dragging his gaze up off the floor to look at her.

"What part of I'm in love with you don't you get?" asks Kate, reaching out to squeeze his forearm.

"Mr. Castle. Detective Beckett. Still here?" comes Gates' booming voice from across the room.

Kate whirls round to face their Captain, dropping her hand from Castle's arm and taking an automatic step back. "We…uh…we were just leaving, sir. That is…yeah, we're leaving now," replies Kate, deciding not to attempt to clarify any further whether they're leaving together or apart.

"The clock is ticking on that leave, Detective," Gates adds, tapping the face of her watch.

"Yes, sir," acknowledges Kate, reaching for her bag.

Castle nods to the Captain and then gives the boys a little parting wave, still on his best behavior.

"See you in a couple of days," says Kate, before turning to guide Castle out of the bullpen ahead of her.

Her hand, resting on the back of his jacket the entire way to the elevator, is missed by no one, least of all Castle, whose throat is so tight he's unable to speak when they get inside the car to ride down to the lobby and she asks him to start again where they left off.

"How about you tell me how much you love me now?" she suggests, slipping her hand into his and dropping her head to rest against his shoulder as soon as the metal doors close.

_TBC..._

* * *

_*Note: My apologies if you don't watch 'Orange is The New Black' and therefore had no idea what I was talking about. Basically, Piper is in a woman's prison. She's engaged to Larry, who sleeps with her best friend, Polly, while she's inside. Piper is granted a 48 hour furlough to attend her grandmother's funeral &amp; at the wake she and Larry attempt to have sex in the bathroom at her parents' house. However, his guilt over his affair with Polly prevents him from sealing the deal. Getting furlough from prison is so rare that it jogs Castle's mind to that whole fictional scenario in this chapter because Gates has just granted Kate 48 hours leave at such short notice. _

_I'm thinking maybe that all sounds too meta now I write is down (fiction referencing fiction) but hey ho! Hope I haven't confused you too much. At the very least you can keep laughing at my author's notes. ;)_

_Have a great weekend. Liv_


	26. Chapter 26 - Driving Back In Time

_A/N: Starting out with an apology for forgetting to put a spoiler warning on the 'Orange is The New Black' joke in the last chapter. Sorry Alana and ZKCaskett. Also, it hit me while in bed the other morning that this AU is actually set before OiTNB even began airing. So, total screw up on that, as pointed out by Seilleanmor. I'm going with the time travel thing someone kindly suggested in a review. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, onwards…_

* * *

**Chapter 26: Driving Back In Time**

_Previously…_

_"Mr. Castle. Detective Beckett. Still here?" comes Gates' booming voice from across the room._

_Kate whirls round to face their Captain, dropping her hand from Castle's arm and taking an automatic step back. "We…uh…we were just leaving, sir. That is…yeah, we're leaving now," replies Kate, deciding not to attempt to clarify any further whether they're leaving together or apart._

_"The clock is ticking on that leave, Detective," Gates adds, tapping the face of her watch._

_"Yes, sir," acknowledges Kate, reaching for her bag._

_Castle nods to the Captain and then gives the boys a little parting wave, still on his best behavior._

_"See you in a couple of days," says Kate, before turning to guide Castle out of the bullpen ahead of her._

_Her hand, resting on the back of his jacket the entire way to the elevator, is missed by no one, least of all Castle, whose throat is so tight he's unable to speak when they get inside the car to ride down to the lobby and she asks him to start again where they left off._

_"How about you tell me how much you love me now?" she suggests, slipping her hand into his and dropping her head to rest against his shoulder as soon as the metal doors close._

* * *

They finally leave FDR Drive and Manhattan behind, crossing the span of the Robert F Kennedy Bridge before Castle glances across the console at the beautiful woman lying stretched out in the seat next to him; her boots off, the toes of her socked feet pressed against the dash of his SUV. She's humming along to an old song that's playing on his docked iPod – Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams singing _'Too Much Too Little Too Late'_. He set the iPod to shuffle as soon as they left the precinct, and this is a break-up song from 1978 that he listened to over and over again after Kyra left. He rediscovered it in digital form when he finally woke up and realized that Kate wasn't going to call after she left the hospital to recuperate from being shot, and he had no idea where she was, except that he believed that wherever she was she was with Josh. So the song landed up on this sad little playlist he made for himself, along with another twenty or so of the most depressing, forlorn, heart-breaking tunes he could find to torture himself with. He should have called it 'songs to wallow to', for all the good listening to it ever did him, except act as a soundtrack to getting up from his desk or the refuge of his bed to pour himself another glass of Scotch.

Kate of today has her mouth pressed to the back of her hand as she looks out the window at the scenery flying past on her side of the car, seemingly oblivious to the significance behind the words of the song if her serene, relaxed expression is anything to go by.

Castle reaches out to flip on to the next track, which the devious, little gremlin he's certain lives inside his iPod decides should be Macy Gray's _'I Try'_.

_Fuck! _

Kate looks over and smiles at him…_knowingly_.

"That's some playlist," she teases, looking off into the distance again as she begins singing along to the song.

'_I try to say goodbye and I choke  
I try to walk away and I stumble  
Though I try to hide it it's clear  
My world crumbles when you are not near'_

"Got _The Cure_ on there?" she asks, folding her arms across her chest, more amusement making her eyes sparkle.

"'_Pictures of You'_," admits Castle, with a chuckle.

Kate nods, her eyes positively twinkling, as Castle flips through the list of tracks until he finds the song she's talking about.

'_Remembering you fallen into my arms  
Crying for the death of your heart  
You were stone white, so delicate lost in the cold  
You were always so lost in the dark'_

He lets the song play until these lyrics stream out into the car, and then he reaches forward and jumps the track on again. The words are too real, too close to the truth, to the gruesome detail of his nightmares back when—

* * *

"We're pathetic."

Kate's declaration interrupts his thoughts.

He glances at her in surprise and finds her smiling back at him.

"Well…we _were,_" she amends, shaking her head, making her curls dance around her shoulders. "Sinead O'Conner," she sighs, allowing herself a soft chuckle. "_'Nothing Compares to You'_."

Castle's eyebrows shoot up. "_Really?_" he laughs, surprised by her confession.

Kate shrugs. "Well, you are kind of a one-off, Castle."

"I don't know whether to be insulted or—"

"You know fine what I meant. Stop digging for compliments," she warns, poking him in the side.

He flinches away from her pointy finger, trying to keep his eyes on the road. "Gotcha," he grins, blushing at the honesty behind her reprimanding tone. She thinks he's special.

"You should see my _Soft Cell_ collection," he offers, a second or two later, trying to share the burden of their joint failure to just speak up for one another, be honest about what they wanted, what they were feeling, instead of wallowing separately in misery for so long.

"You like Soft Cell?" Her tone suggests interest and maybe even surprise, reminding him that there are still so many things they don't know about one another. It's exciting.

"Surprised?"

Kate shrugs. "Mm, just… What else you got?"

The iPod is still on shuffle, and soon James Blunt's voice drifts into the car from the speakers. Kate begins to hum again.

Castle relaxes as the strains of _'You're Beautiful'_ fill the void left behind by the awkwardness of his _'break-up/pathetically unrequited love'_ mix.

'_My life is brilliant  
My love is pure  
I saw an angel  
Of that I'm sure  
She smiled at me on the subway  
She was with another man  
But I won't lose no sleep on that  
'Cause I've got a plan'_

By the end of the first verse Kate is singing along, knows every word. Castle is entranced. He can only remember hearing her sing once before – a ragged rendition of Billy Joel's _'Piano Man'_ she took part in one night at the precinct along with the boys, himself and Roy Montgomery. Her voice is good: tuneful, clear and entirely faithful to the original recording.

By the time they hit the chorus she's turning up the volume and belting out _'You're Beautiful'_ at the top of her voice, as warm air streams into the car through the open windows. She pokes Castle's thigh, urging him to join in, and so they fly along the I-95N heading out towards New Haven, CT, singing like a couple of teenage girls, minus the hairbrush.

* * *

Silence falls inside the SUV, and they both get lost inside their own heads for a while, when a random instrumental track comes on to chill things down a notch. But the way back is easier now, he knows - the route back to being together in the present, reconnecting, talking – after a silence like this. He can ask her anything now, tell her anything, including how much he loves her, which is new and brilliant and definitely the most amazing feeling he's experienced in a really long time.

But there is one thought praying on his mind, and it's not that he's afraid to ask, more that he's afraid of the answer.

"You think they suspect anything?" he finally works up the courage to ask her, because he is definitely worried that they've recklessly put their partnership in jeopardy by going into the precinct together today.

It seemed like a fun idea when they left the loft like giddy kids heading off to camp; throwing their luggage into the trunk with carefree wantonness, reluctant to spend even a moment apart. But in retrospect, his unwillingness to wait in the car when they reached the precinct parking garage seems more like wilful stupidity.

Kate stops humming and turns to look at him, her lips still curved into a smile. She shrugs. "Nothing we can do about it now if they do. We'll know in a couple of days if Gates calls me into her office and hauls me over the carpet."

They fall silent for a moment and then Kate turns to look at Castle again. "Why? You worried?" she asks, reaching across to stroke his arm with the tip of her finger. She watches in wonder as fine, golden hair rises in the sunlight along the tan length of his forearm.

"Remember why you were afraid to take things to the next level…with us?" he asks, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.

"Mm."

He glances at her to make sure she understands what he's referring to. "How you were afraid to lose what we had," he reminds her, since the whole issue is so much more complicated than that, and he's only talking about one small part right now.

"Yes, but it wasn't that simple. I also wanted to protect you after I got shot."

"Yeah, I know that. But, I'm saying I get why you didn't want things to change. _Now_, I finally get it. I love being your partner, Kate. And I know I'm not a cop, but I also like knowing I can be there to back you up. The thought of someone replacing me…taking on that role…someone who doesn't care as much, who isn't invested in what happens to you the way I—"

Kate smiles, letting her hand fall to his leg. "Hey! Let's not worry about something that hasn't even happen yet, okay?" she says, gently squeezing his thigh in an attempt to calm him.

"But if it does—"

"Then we cross that bridge. Now might be a good time to invite the Mayor round for another poker night. Get in a few bottles of the good stuff, like you used to," she suggests, smoothing her palm up and down his thigh.

Castle laughs, his mood suddenly brightening. "I think I like devious Kate."

"You sure about that?" she asks, arching her eyebrow and poking his knee with her toes.

"When your utter deviousness is directed at others, I meant to say."

Kate laughs this time. "I thought as much."

* * *

Her dad's cabin is situated a few miles from the coast, between the towns of Fairfield and Bridgeport, Connecticut. It sits in a quiet tract of forest close to Lake Mohegan: a reservoir that is a popular fishing and hunting spot for locals and visitors alike.

When it's time, Kate directs Castle to take the next exit off the interstate, and they begin to cut inland, leaving Long Island Sound somewhere behind them.

"How much further?" he asks her a few minutes later, when she tells him to take the next right and they head off the main road and onto a rural track surrounded by trees.

"Not long now. Less than ten minutes," she promises, sitting up a little straighter in her seat, an edge of excitement making her more fidgety and alert.

She bends forward, fishing around in the footwell, trying to find her boots. When Castle hits a particularly deep pothole and the SUV bounces over the rough terrain, she has to make a grab for the passenger door handle to steady herself.

"Sorry! Crossing this track must have been fun when you were—"

Kate looks at him quizzically because he stops talking the instant his brain catches up with what he was about to say. He lets the observation die, unfinished. Getting closer to the cabin – to the location of his pain and her mysterious period of recovery – is dredging up all sorts of long-buried feelings, and it's making him stupidly resentful of that time all over again. He has to remind himself that this place made her well, eventually, that whatever she drew from here enabled her to come looking for him when she was strong enough. He has to remind himself that there was no Josh, only her dad, and a lot of alone time after she sent her father packing. He has to remind himself that she loves him and that they're in a much better place now. He has to remember to breathe.

"And here we are," she says brightly, either oblivious to his inner turmoil or choosing to ignore it. She's unbuckling her seatbelt before he has time to pull his head out of his ass and figure out what's what.

Kate gestures through the windshield to a small area of hard standing up ahead and to the right – a rectangle of smooth, black asphalt scattered with dry pine needles that would take about three cars side-by-side. "You can park up over there."

When they get out, Castle just stands there, speechless.

He's often fantasized about taking Kate out to his house in the Hamptons: imagined watching her gape up at the house, no words when she sees the magnificent sprawl of his estate, imagined the way his heart would swell with pride in his chest to share it all with her. But this is different, leaving him equally speechless for reasons other than scale, unless you count the sensation of wilderness, of nature raw and loud and proud, spreading out all around them. No, this is speechless of another kind all together, because it's Kate and it's her sharing this with him, and that feeling is both wonderful and yet a strangely sad and poignant one.

She was less than an hour and a half from him that whole, terrible time, less than an hour and a half from the city, and he from her. He swallows hard, tamping down a sudden rush of anger and regret that burns in his gut and constricts the muscles of his throat.

Kate is by his side, standing next to him by the open door of the car, before he hears or even notices her moving. She's smiling serenely and the sun is filtering down through the trees to fall on a thicket of ferns, but not before it catches the back of her head on the way down, making her hair shine with tiny golden flecks that spark around every curl, throwing a ten-foot tall shadow out into the trees.

She holds her hand out to him after she collects the keys from the ignition and closes the driver's door, since he seems incapable of either task. "You comin', Castle?" she asks, and just like that he takes her hand and they fall in step.

_TBC..._


	27. Chapter 27 - And Into The Woods We Go

_A/N: I'm going on vacation this week, so updates will probably take longer while I'm travelling. I just wanted you to know I'm not abandoning this story. Thank you for your continued support. _

* * *

**Chapter 27: And Into The Woods We Go**

_Previously…_

_He's often fantasized about taking Kate out to his house in the Hamptons: imagined watching her gape up at the house, no words when she sees the magnificent sprawl of his estate, imagined the way his heart would swell with pride in his chest to share it all with her. But this is different, leaving him equally speechless for reasons other than scale, unless you count the sensation of wilderness, of nature raw and loud and proud, spreading out all around them. No, this is speechless of another kind all together, because it's Kate and it's her sharing this with him, and that feeling is both wonderful and yet a strangely sad and poignant one._

_She was less than an hour and a half from him that whole, terrible time, less than an hour and a half from the city, and he from her. He swallows hard, tamping down a sudden rush of anger and regret that burns in his gut and constricts the muscles of his throat._

_Kate is by his side, standing next to him by the open door of the car, before he hears or even notices her moving. She's smiling serenely and the sun is filtering down through the trees to fall on a thicket of ferns, but not before it catches the back of her head on the way down, making her hair shine with tiny golden flecks that spark around every curl, throwing a ten-foot tall shadow out into the trees._

_She holds her hand out to him after she collects the keys from the ignition and closes the driver's door, since he seems incapable of either task. "You comin', Castle?" she asks, and just like that he takes her hand and they fall in step._

* * *

Kate leads him along a path – a narrow channel just as wide as a man - that's been worn into the earth by years of tramping feet and maybe just a few swipes of a rusty old scythe now and then to keep the large green ferns that provide ground cover under control. The ferns seem to rule the roost as far as Castle can see, growing wild and rampant to the exclusion of everything else. Dry bracken, ground to a powdery, rust-colored dust in places along the middle of the path, crunches underfoot. Fallen, rotting fronds litter the ground beneath, feeding future plants with its rich, dark mulch. The cycle of life in one carcinogenic, vascular, invasive, spore spouting species.

He needs to clear his head. Get rid of the dark thoughts that are dragging down his mood. Get back to the euphoric feel of singing with Kate at the top of his lungs on the ride out here. Focus on the here and now, on being with her, on letting the past go. He takes a deep, cleansing breath and looks up.

The tree covering is wonderful – mostly gigantic old pines - stretching ramrod straight all the way up to the sky. They cast a cool, emerald glow from the lofty canopy they create all the way down to the ground.

"Careful," warns Kate, squeezing Castle's hand tighter when he stumbles on a tree root when he isn't watching where he's going.

His gaze is still cast upwards into the trees, then back and forth, left and right; marveling at the quiet, hollow vastness of the forest cathedral spreading out around them.

"This is…_wow, _Kate," he murmurs, his voice filled with awe.

Her fingers curl tighter around his hand in gratitude as she literally leads him up the garden path.

"And here it is," she tells him, tugging on his hand to bring him up alongside her.

They both stop walking to admire the little cabin in the woods from a short distance away - her dad's place - _her_ refuge and _his_ black hole.

Somehow seeing it for real makes him feel just a little better, even if remnants of the old ache still sit heavy in his chest. 'Picture postcard' are the words that spring to mind. It's so perfect. If someone had asked him to imagine his fantasy cabin in the woods, to write it down or sketch is out, he couldn't have done any better. There's a hint of Scandinavia in the red wooden siding, white window frames and the bright green, velvety moss that coats the roof. Bundles of dead pine needles have gathered in clumps on the cedar roof tiles where the rain has slicked a path, forcing them to cleave to one another. This coating of nature grounds the little house within its surroundings, lending it a cloak of invisibility, almost as if the earth were claiming it back or attempting to shield it from prying eyes.

Kate frowns, while still smiling, as is her way sometimes. "You look…"

"I—I'm kind of stunned. It's so pretty and yet…that in no way does it justice. It's…Kate, it's like a fairytale."

She tugs on his hand, giving him an impish smile, her eyes alive with mischief. "And into the woods we go," she grins, leading him closer to the little house.

* * *

A porch runs along the front of the building, elevated from ground level by four creaky wooden steps. Two old rockers sit side-by-side below one window, the varnish long cracked and flaked off. A planter filled with hardy geraniums provides a riot of color beneath the window on the opposite side of the front door. Tall weeds of grass poke out from around the sturdy stalks and leaves where seeds have blown in or been deposited by birds. A pair of dormer windows break up the roofline and red and white gingham curtains wink at Castle from every window. It's a happier place than he had imagined – more Seven Dwarfs than Big Bad Wolf – and he's starting to see why Kate would come here to get away from everything, him included, even if he will always wish things had turned out differently.

"Come on. Let me show you inside," offers Kate, battling with a set of keys held together on an old jailers', heavy-duty, steel keyring.

Dust covers shroud the furniture – armchairs and sofas for the most part – giving them the appearance of frowzy old ladies dressed in tent-like, floral housecoats. Kate heads for the windows, opening the wooden shutters to let the light flood in. Dust motes rise in her wake, particles separating off to swirl through the air, performing pirouettes like tiny ballerinas in the shafts of ambient daylight.

Castle just stands in the middle of the living room looking useless. He can't stop staring at everything. Somehow being here is more intimate than being invited into her apartment back in the city. This is a part of her past, her family history. It belongs to her dad. He can't imagine she's brought a lot of guys here, or maybe that's just wishful thinking on his part.

Right on cue, his partner reads his damn mind.

"Hey," she whispers, coming up behind him and resting her chin on his shoulder, "I'll give you the fifty cent tour if you promise not to mock my childhood bedroom."

Definitely no old boyfriends then, he thinks with glee.

"You—you haven't…eh…upgraded? I mean if…if friends came to stay, if—"

Kate smiles in understanding, as in tune with him as ever. "Castle, apart from my dad, you're the only man to cross the threshold of this cabin since my Grandpa Joe was alive. Oh, unless you count Eric the local handyman. I had to get him in to fix the generator while I was staying out here by myself."

"You had a strange man in here while you were alone recuperating?" he balks, squeezing her wrist hard. "Kate, are you _mad_? Anything could have happened."

Anxiety flashes through him at the very thought of her being alone out here, never mind some Stephen King style horror of a backwoodsman showing up with an axe in his pocket.

Kate crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes. "Like…_what?_ Castle, he's _sixty-nine_. I've known Eric since I was yay high," she explains, hovering her hand around knee height. "He's like family. And beside, I could snap him like a twig if I really wanted to."

"Oh," replies Castle, at least looking contrite. "I just don't like to think of you out here alone," he admits, though as he continues to look around the first floor living space, he has to concede, if only in his own head, that the cabin is pretty damn cozy.

"Yeah, well, I think we already established that wasn't my smartest decision. Let's just say I'd change a few things if I had a chance at a do-over."

Castle acknowledges her veiled apology with a nod of acceptance. "So...how about that tour?"

* * *

The craftsmanship inside the cabin really is something, and the warmth given off by the wooden floors, walls and ceiling make it hard to believe that this place remains closed up during the winter months for the most part. Castle imagines a roaring fire in the hearth, snow on the ground outside, the creak from the pine trees as their big old branches struggle under the weight of the snow dump from yet another blizzard. He knows he's being a romantic sap, so he's kind of glad Kate can't hear his thoughts right now.

The kitchen is rustic – handmade cabinets, an island that doubles as a breakfast bar and food prep area. There are three stools lined up along one side of the counter. They fit the space well, but the poignancy of that number… It's like a kick to the gut, and Castle's never even met her mom. He gets an image in his head of little Katie Beckett being lifted up by her dad to sit between both her parents, a plate of pancakes and bacon before her, chocolate chips that make a smiley face. He wonders how Kate deals with these constant reminders, with her own memories, or if it's just part of her now, healed over, buried deep like a piece of gravel you'll never get out from under your skin.

He's suddenly aware of Kate saying something from where she's leaning against the stove behind him, quietly observing his reaction to everything he's seeing for the first time.

"She loved it here." Her voice is quiet, her tone light and neutral, just a hint of nostalgia when she trails off.

They're more in tune than ever, or maybe it's less guarded.

"I can see why," replies Castle, clearing his throat and running his fingers along the smooth, varnished surface of the handcrafted worktop. "Must have been an amazing place to come when you were a kid."

Kate smiles, her gaze growing distant. "Fireflies," she murmurs, turning a child-like grin on him. "This was the first place I ever saw fireflies. My dad told me they existed but I wouldn't believe him."

"So…you've always been strong on show don't tell," chuckles Castle.

Kate laughs, nodding vigorously. "Yeah. I was all about the evidence, even then. So he dragged me out of bed one night to see them. My mom was mad at him for waking me. But, Castle, it was _magical_," she proclaims, her voice an uttered hush of wonder that widens her eyes.

It always buoys him to hear her good memories, and having met her dad, he's sure that there's a whole heap of them he's yet to uncover. Because Jim Beckett is a fundamentally kind, caring father, and Castle is pretty sure that with Johanna Beckett around Kate's life would have been filled with joy and love everyday.

"So…you _did_ believe in magic…at one time?" he asks, watching her pause to consider his comment.

She nods slowly, as if that fact is dawning on her too. "I lost it there for a while, but I'm pretty sure magic is coming back into my life," she tells him cryptically, her eyes twinkling. "If that doesn't sound too…hokey."

"Hokey? Beckett, take a look at who you're talking to. Rick Castle: believer in all things weird, unexplained, otherworldly, random, fanciful, supernatural, fairylike, futuristic, zombiefied, sci-fi, speculative… Need I go on?"

Her smile is soft and indulgent. "Got a point," she admits, coyly toying with a lock of hair.

They stand across the island from one another, eyes locked, the familiar humor and deep attraction they share sparking in the air between them until the atmosphere gets too heavy and Kate holds out her hand.

"Wanna help me unload the car?" she asks, wiggling her fingers in Castle's direction.

"I thought I was getting the grand tour," he pouts, glancing towards the stairs with naked longing.

"The fifty cent tour is over," giggles Kate. "Help me bring in the groceries, start the generator and maybe I'll take you upstairs," she suggests, with a saucy wink.

"Sounds…promising," admits Castle, letting his eyebrows do the talking for him, their suggestive dance leaving Kate in no doubt about what he expects from the rest of the tour.

She drifts closer, patting him on the chest as she passes en route to the front door. "I'm sure you won't be disappointed," she promises, clasping his hand and dragging him outside after her.

* * *

Kate squeals and takes off running when Castle grabs for her, large hands and seeking fingers reaching for the ticklish skin around her waist. He chases her down the pathway that leads back to his car, foliage whispering and waving as they bolt past, laughing like kids until the sound echoes off the trees. Kate is faster than him, fitter too, so he knows she's not trying as hard as she could. He catches up with her when they reach the parking area, pinning her up against the side of his SUV. He wedges her in with his legs either side of hers, his hands planted level with her chest against the window of the car. No where to go.

They're both out of breath, chests heaving as they fight for air, ridiculous grins splitting their faces.

"What's this? Kiss chase?" asks Kate, a curl of arousal seeping through her blood at the predatory look in Castle's eyes.

He shakes his head, leaning in closer until his belt buckle brushes the front of her jeans. "Nope. Done chasing," he pants, reaching out to caress her cheek with the tips of his fingers as his gaze drops to her mouth. "I'm all about the kissing from now on," he says, ducking his head to press his lips to hers, eyes fluttering closed.

They make out against the side of Castle's car, ruthlessly, breathlessly tearing at each other's mouths, no kiss deep or dirty enough after all that they've been through. Kate clutches the back of Castle's jacket, balling the material in her clenched fists, dragging him harder against her body, her heart thundering in her chest as he plunders her mouth with his tongue leaving her unable to think straight. They break apart when a twig snaps somewhere nearby, and they freeze, listening for the source of the sound, both still so paranoid that they immediately wonder if they're being watched.

"What was—" Castle whispers, breaking off when Kate touches her fingers to his damp, kiss-bruised lips to silence him.

"Shh. Over there," she tells him, pointing in the direction of a clump of trees where a deer stands alone about thirty yards away, head dipped as it tears at the undergrowth.

Castle reaches into his jacket for his phone to take a picture, and the deer instantly straightens up, ears twitching back and forth. Before he can even select the camera facility, the creature takes off, vaulting a fallen log and disappearing deeper into the woods.

He turns to look at Kate and finds her watching him instead of the departing animal, an open, loving look in her eyes.

"This place is special," he says, more statement than question, running a hand down her arm.

Kate nods, glancing at the ground where Castle's boots bracket her own. When she looks up again there are tears in her eyes. She takes both of his hands, holding onto his fingers gently. "I know I shouldn't have shut you out. But coming here was good for me…healing. I want you to know this place like I do, Castle. I want you to see it…everything. This is _me_. This place is as much a part of who I am as the badge and the gun…probably more so."

Castle listens to her solemnly, his heart swelling with hope and excitement for the future the more she explains, proves she's letting him in.

Kate looks around them at the trees, the calming silence, the healing power of nature, and then she looks back up at her partner. "These woods and that little cabin are in my DNA, Rick. Just like being around your mom's theater friends is in yours. I want you to see that side of me. I don't want to hide anything from you anymore."

Castle tilts forward, pressing his forehead against hers. He lets go of her hands and wraps his arms around her. "I've waited years to hear you say that," he admits, kissing her forehead and then her cheek. "Thank you," he whispers, enfolding her in a tight embrace.

Kate eventually eases back, reaching up to tenderly run her fingers through his hair. "Help me take our things inside. I feel an afternoon nap coming on," she tells him, pulling the car keys out of her pocket to pop the trunk.

When Kate glances back over her shoulder to check on him, the stunned grin on Castle's face is worthy of a picture. "Castle. A little help here," she says, bringing them back down to earth; better, more complete versions of themselves.

_TBC..._


	28. Chapter 28 - Go Fish

**A/N: Short chapter to keep you amused before tonight's show. Enjoy it whenever you get a chance to watch...I hope! ;)**

* * *

**Chapter 28: Go Fish**

_Previously…_

_"This place is special," he says, more statement than question, running a hand down her arm._

_Kate nods, glancing at the ground where Castle's boots bracket her own. When she looks up again there are tears in her eyes. She takes both of his hands, holding onto his fingers gently. "I know I shouldn't have shut you out. But coming here was good for me…healing. I want you to know this place like I do, Castle. I want you to see it…everything. This is me. This place is as much a part of who I am as the badge and the gun…probably more so."_

_Castle listens to her solemnly, his heart swelling with hope and excitement for the future the more she explains, proves she's letting him in._

_Kate looks around them at the trees, the calming silence, the healing power of nature, and then she looks back up at her partner. "These woods and that little cabin are in my DNA, Rick. Just like being around your mom's theater friends is in yours. I want you to see that side of me. I don't want to hide anything from you anymore."_

_Castle tilts forward, pressing his forehead against hers. He lets go of her hands and wraps his arms around her. "I've waited years to hear you say that," he admits, kissing her forehead and then her cheek. "Thank you," he whispers, enfolding her in a tight embrace._

_Kate eventually eases back, reaching up to tenderly run her fingers through his hair. "Help me take our things inside. I feel an afternoon nap coming on," she tells him, pulling the car keys out of her pocket to pop the trunk._

_When Kate glances back over her shoulder to check on him, the stunned grin on Castle's face is worthy of a picture. "Castle. A little help here," she says, bringing them back down to earth; better, more complete versions of themselves._

* * *

Castle is sitting on the middle stool at the kitchen counter, a black Moleskin notebook open in front of him, which he's scribbling into with the speed of a court stenographer. A look of absolute concentration has set about his features, and Kate takes this quiet, oblivious moment to watch him write. Actually being able to witness her favourite author write is an uncommon event for her so far, despite their years' long partnership. It's mesmerizing, thrilling: to watch him work, to craft, create and imagine. The spurt of inspiration that's come over him since they arrived at the cabin has kept him quiet since they brought their bags inside together, allowing Kate to remake the bed upstairs and give the little cabin a proper airing.

She hopes their first night together, as much as her family's picturesque little hideaway in the woods, has contributed to this rush of ideas he told her he _'absolutely had to get down now, Beckett',_ as she continues to admire him while he's unaware of her.

His muse.

He has his sleeves rolled up, a mug of coffee clasped in the vee created by his tan forearms, and he's wearing a couple of faded, worn friendship bracelets on his wrist that she's never see before. _Friendship bracelets?_ Huh! Alexis, maybe? She'll ask him later. But whatever, she likes this side to him – casual, earthy, and oh so very, very sexy.

* * *

Several hessian _Whole Foods_ bags sit untouched side-by-side on the counter, and Kate finally manages to tear her gaze away from admiring her partner's manicured fingernails and impossibly talented hands just long enough to begin unpacking them.

"Castle, how much _food_ did you _buy_?" asks Kate, with her head inside the refrigerator and her rear sticking out.

She yelps in surprise, immediately straightening, when he slaps her on the ass and then walks innocently away…_whistling! _

When did he even get up?

"You'll thank me later, Beckett," he boasts, with confidence.

"You mean when the apocalypse comes and we're the only two people left alive on the planet with—"

She pauses to rummage inside one of the bags. "With _three_ packets of Goldfish crackers to sustain us? Castle, _three?_ We're only here for two days," she points out, dangling the colorful paper sacks from her fingers.

"And you're wasting one of them debating my snack choices. Tell me yours and I'll be happy to accommodate you next time."

Next time. That is one hell of a comforting thought, muses Castle, not to mention a presumptuous one. Just so long as he doesn't annoy her too much this time. But the way she's looking at him - with the barest hint of indulgence in her eyes that she can't quite hide - makes him think he's safe…for now.

His notebook is now closed, Kate fleetingly notices, before turning away to store the crackers in the cupboard.

* * *

Out of nowhere Castle unconsciously deepens his voice and stands a little taller, working his broad shoulders and chest for all he's worth. "I'll just go check the oil levels on the generator outside while you finish up in here," he tells her, an oily rag he's procured from..._somewhere_ dangling from his hand and a tool belt, with her Grandpa Joe's wrench and socket set attached, hung low down around his hips.

He looks like a gunslinger about to face off with his arch nemesis on a Wild West main street in some dusty, one-horse town out West, balls of tumbleweed rolling on by as he tips his white Stetson and widens his stance.

Okay, she's clearly fantasizing now. She blushes while Castle stands exactly where he is, watching her watching him, his runaway mouth, that she badly wants to kiss, silent for once.

Kate crosses her arms over her chest and flares out one hip so that she can lean against the counter and continue to admire him. He's wearing a plaid shirt - dark green, white and red check - the sleeves rolled up to elbow height, with a white v-neck t-shirt underneath and a pair of blue jeans she doesn't think she's ever seen before. They're more Levi's than paperdenim&amp;cloth or any of the other premium jean brands he usually favors. They're a classic mid-blue, boot cut, worn lighter on the thighs and butt through use, paired with a cracked, brown leather belt and raggedy hems. He's working the ruggedly handsome angle and then some.

"I had no idea you were so…_rustically-inclined_," remarks Kate, rolling the words off her teeth, tongue and lips, while giving him a rather obvious, predatory once-over.

Castle feels his skin prickle under her intense gaze. She's doing new things to him, constantly doing new things – surprising and delighting and reassuring and sexy, sexy, loving, affectionate things that make him feel more special and more wanted than he can ever remember feeling before.

"Then I guess there's still a lot we can learn about each other. Should keep things interesting," he adds, with a wink.

"You _do_ know what you're doing out there?" she asks skeptically, nodding in the direction of the oily rag.

"I wasn't always rich, Beckett. I've lived in my share of dive apartments with crappy heating and leaky plumbing. Not to mention useless, absentee landlords."

Kate's eyebrows shoot up. "I see," she murmurs, with just a hint of disbelief.

It's amusing: these traditional roles they've assumed at the little house pretty much as soon as they arrived – Kate unpacking groceries while Castle tends to maintenance. It's like a complete reversal of their positions in the city. Castle kind of likes it, since it makes him feel macho and more useful for a change.

As he heads for the door, Kate clears her throat and says, "Smoked almonds," just loud enough for him to hear.

Castle pauses with his hand on the screen door, already halfway out onto the porch, and then he turns to look back at her. "Hmm?"

"My snack preference…for next time," she says, giving him a shy smile. "It's smoked almonds," she repeats, before returning to unpack the rest of their food.

* * *

When Castle returns to the cabin fifteen minutes later, his hands are filthy and his cheek has a streak of dirt on it several inches long; like a scar. There's a cobweb draped across one shoulder of his shirt and the knees of his jeans are dusty.

"What did you—" exclaims Kate, hurrying over to brush him down. "Castle, what on _earth?_ Did you give the whole generator a make-over?"

Castle laughs, actually _laughs_ at her.

"_What?_" she asks indignantly, lightly slapping at his shoulder to get rid of the ancient, petrified cobweb.

"A _make-over_, Kate? What, you think I put lipstick on it, did its hair, maybe a little nail varnish?"

Kate pokes his chest. "Less of your lip, partner."

"There are bikes in the shed," he says, completely changing the subject as Kate leads him over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands.

"Oh…yeah, I forgot about those. Aren't the tires flat by now?"

"Nothing a little pumping won't fix."

The air stills. Kate sniggers helplessly and Castle's eyes widen.

"Mind out of the gutter, Beckett. Grandpa Joe would _not _be impressed, young lady," he chides.

"But I bet _you_ are," counters Kate, pushing against him as he lathers soap onto his hands so she can reach his mouth and draw a groan-filled kiss from his lips, before she slaps _his_ ass and then saunters casually away to sit on the sofa..._whistling_.

_TBC..._


	29. Chapter 29 - In Sickness And In Health

**Chapter 29: In Sickness And In Health**

_Previously…_

_When Castle returns to the cabin fifteen minutes later, his hands are filthy and his cheek has a streak of dirt on it several inches long; like a scar. There's a cobweb draped across one shoulder of his shirt and the knees of his jeans are dusty._

_"What did you—" exclaims Kate, hurrying over to brush him down. "Castle, what on earth? Did you give the whole generator a make-over?"_

_Castle laughs, actually laughs at her._

_"What?" she asks indignantly, lightly slapping at his shoulder to get rid of the ancient, petrified cobweb._

_"A make-over, Kate? What, you think I put lipstick on it, did its hair, maybe a little nail varnish?"_

_Kate pokes his chest. "Less of your lip, partner."_

_"There are bikes in the shed," he says, completely changing the subject as Kate leads him over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands._

_"Oh…yeah, I forgot about those. Aren't the tires flat by now?"_

_"Nothing a little pumping won't fix."_

_The air stills. Kate sniggers helplessly and Castle's eyes widen._

_"Mind out of the gutter, Beckett. Grandpa Joe would not be impressed, young lady," he chides._

_"But I bet you are," counters Kate, pushing against him as he lathers soap onto his hands so she can reach his mouth and draw a groan-filled kiss from his lips, before she slaps his ass and then saunters casually away to sit on the sofa...whistling._

* * *

When Castle has finished washing his hands and finally snaps out of his dreamy daze, he pours them both another cup of coffee and then he ambles over to join Kate on the sofa. He sinks back into the soft, gray cushions and takes a quiet moment to look around. A pair of rattan-backed rocking chairs sit sentry at either end of the sofa, plump, ikat print throw pillows nestling in their warm embrace. A heavy, mahogany coffee table completes the lounge area setup, its scarred surface adorned by a few coffee table books - a large format decorating pictorial entitled _Rustic American Home_, The National Audubon Society Field Guide to American Wildflowers, a dog-eared copy of _The Greatest Hunting Stories Ever Told_ and a stack of out-of-date National Geographic Magazines. A pair of silver candlesticks, their vibrant, red candles burned halfway down, stand in the center of the coffee table, adding a touch of New York elegance to the bucolic surroundings.

The gray stone fireplace fills one wall, its deep hearth dark and inviting come winter, Castle imagines. A neat stack of split logs and a woven basket of kindling sticks rest off to one side ready for any unexpected cold snap. The overhead light is an elaborate affair made of bleached deer antlers, adding to the rustic authenticity of the place. The writer absently wonders if Jim Beckett or one of Kate's ancestors shot and killed the deer that supplied the necessary for the decorative light fitting.

Castle sips his coffee quietly, savoring the companionable silence for once, and then he tears his gaze up off the red and black, Aztec design area rug to look at Kate. She's weeding through the small stack of mail that has accumulated since her last visit out here, or her dad's, he's not actually sure who visited last.

He hands her the rust-colored, crackle-glazed mug with a smile and a quick jab of his chin, since she seems oblivious to its fragrant presence even though it sits right in front of her. "Here. Made you a fresh cup."

Seems some things about their respective roles haven't changed.

"Thanks," she murmurs, a smile of gratitude curling her lips even as her eyes remain trained on the Connecticut Department of Energy &amp; Environmental Protection notice to renew her father's fishing license.

"Your dad fish out here a lot?" asks Castle, watching Kate as she blindly lifts the mug of hot coffee to her lips, blows on the dark surface then takes a sip without halting her study of the official reminder for a single second.

"Mm?" she hums absently, going back for more of the coffee immediately.

Castle is slightly stunned by her ease around him, by her lack of wariness or any awkwardness between them. They're still a little shy with one another, a little overawed by the newness of everything when they stop to think about it. But he is surprised by how amazingly comfortable he feels being with her in this unfamiliar setting. There's no work to distract them out here, and none of the cast of characters who always seem to surround them at his home or at the Precinct, vying for their attention, interrupting every single moment loaded with private potential they ever managed to create for themselves as soon as it reached the apogee of being.

Today, out here in this domestic and most rustic of settings, it's as if they've been doing this all the time, just segued right into it while neither of them noticed the quiet transition. The training wheels simply fell off and they are away, peddling hard.

* * *

He pauses for a moment, taking another sip of coffee while he mulls those thoughts over. He's re-draughting history already, he realizes with a jolt. That quiet, seamless segue? That's not exactly how things happened, he concedes to himself with a quickening of his heart, a sudden sickening palpitation. _Thud, thud, thud._ No, the birth pangs that gave way to the here and now were brutally painful, breathtaking, terrifying at times. That night up on the Brooklyn Bridge, there were moments when he thought there was no way back for them. But Kate fought when it counted, she stepped up and she fell to her knees and begged for his forgiveness. She opened her heart, showed him the fear and the ugliness, the weakness and the ferocity she'd kept hidden from him for so long.

"I'm so sorry. I've been neglecting you," Kate says suddenly, her words colliding with his own thoughts to cause a momentary confusion in his brain.

"Hey, you okay?" she asks gently, dumping the pile of mail, the colorful jumble of flyers and junk, onto the small coffee table and turning to face him so that their knees bump.

Castle shakes his head, throwing off the clash of her apology and his own flashback to smile at her. "I'm making myself at home. No need to play hostess," he tells her with ease.

"You asked about fishing. My dad…he loves fishing. Best afternoons he spent up here when I was— Well, in the beginning when I just slept all the time."

"He _left_ you? _Alone_?" asks Castle, sounding appalled. He edges closer, placing his large, warm hand on her knee, heavy fingers curling over and around her patella, swamping it in warmth.

"I would take a pain pill and be out for hours," she explains gently, knowing how much that healing wound still pains him.

Castle stares at her, eyebrows tented upwards towards his hairline.

"_What?_ I was supposed to just let him sit there all day and watch me sleep?" she asks, her head tilted to one side in sympathy for him and his touching concern for her.

"I would…_I—_"

Castle pauses, a little adrift, so much he wants to say. He scrubs a hand down over his face before reemploying it to lift his coffee cup. He doesn't want to criticize her father just because he can be an over-protective idiot at times and he knows he owes the man a great deal from what Kate's told him about how her dad gently guided her towards him.

"I know you would have," she says softly, sliding her fingers over the knuckles of the hand that remains on her knee. "And he did too when I was too out of it to notice. As soon as I figured out what was going on, how…how _exhausted_ he looked—" She bites her lip, stares at the red rug and then looks up, right into his eyes. "He's not as young as he once was, Castle. I put a stop to the all-night vigils after that."

"We could have worked a shift pattern, had you covered 24/7," he argues reflexively, seeming to forget that her recovery is long complete. That he's offering a solution to a problem that doesn't exist anymore.

"Next time I get injured in the line of duty, I promise—"

She stops at the sickening look of alarm on his face, the sudden evacuation of color from his cheeks.

"But there won't be a next time, God willing," she hastily tacks on, squeezing his fingers hard. "If I get the flu, strep throat, food poisoning, _mono_," she adds, poking his toes with her own, trying to make him laugh.

"If you get mono, _I'll_ have mono," he grumbles, though Kate can see that he's faking it and secretly pleased. "Who'll help us then?"

"That's what kids are for," she blurts, spontaneously, but at least he looks pleasantly startled instead of the horrified of a few seconds ago. "Alexis is in the frame if we both come down with something."

"She does make great chicken noodle soup," offers Castle, trying to match her lighter tone.

"Then it's settled."

"What?"

"Partners…in sickness and in health from now on," she declares, offering him her hand to shake.

He kisses her cheek instead, watching her eyes soften with love and relief. "Sounds good."

"No more hiding away. Promise. You can definitely be the one to hold my hair back when I vomit," she grins, laughing when he grimaces.

But this is happy stuff; small promises here and there that light the way ahead. Being here, at her dad's cabin, is filling in all kinds of blanks for him. Like a child's coloring book, he is crayoning between the lines, adding detail, depth, shape and illumination to the dark corners and the faceless monsters that haunted his dreams all those weeks that Kate was gone.

* * *

"You done with that?" she asks a second or two later, when their coffee is downed and a companionable calm restored.

"Yep," nods Castle, allowing her to take his coffee mug.

He watches her pad over to the kitchen, her long, bare toes, with their navy blue nail polish, a delicious surprise he discovered in bed last night.

"Then come on. Follow me," she tells him, leaving the dirty cups to soak. "I have something to show you."

* * *

The path from the house to the lake is pretty overgrown, though it's clear that there is a path from the flattened foliage and the bald patches in the ground cover where the light sandy soil shines through. They take it single file, Kate leading of course since she knows the way and…well, it's Kate. She always leads the way.

Castle uses the opportunity – and his position as devoted follower - to study her further, permitting himself to look at her in a new light. She's no longer the forbidden or at least unrequited object of his desire, she's his girlfriend now, his lover, and that thought just about blows his mind as he watches her stride ahead on those amazing long legs, sneakers crushing pine cones and dusty bracken alike, snapping dry twigs and stepping over fallen logs, her hair tumbling lose down her back, curls bouncing with every step. To say he is in love with her just isn't good enough anymore. He's been in love with her for such a long time; it became his permanent state of being: a slumbering, omnipresent ache in his heart, a fire in his loins in the dark of night, a longing he could never dull or quench no matter how many hours he spent following her around or just sitting by her side like a loyal companion or some faintly ridiculous overgrown lapdog.

No, this, here, today, now: watching her, knowing what he now knows about her – how impossibly smooth her skin feels beneath his fingertips, the size and shape and perfect weight of her breasts in his hands, the sharp jut of her hip bones when she rolls her body against his, the firmness of her ass, the powerful clench of her thighs, the narrowness of her waist, the feminine curvature of her hips, that hidden tattoo low down on her abdomen, the noises she makes when she comes, the softness of her tongue, the sweetness of her mouth, the ferocity of her kisses…kisses that stole his breath and left him gasping, chasing more, needing more of her like a drug…

_Addicted!_ That's it. He's addicted to Kate Beckett, and happily for him there is no cure. No need, nor wish nor will for one.

* * *

"Hey, you okay back there? You're kinda quiet," notes Kate, pausing suddenly on the path to turn around and check on him.

Thankfully Castle's mental gymnastics mean he's fallen slightly behind and so he doesn't go barreling straight into her when she stops. He catches up in a handful of strides, schooling his face so she can't see the expression of pure love-struck awe he's sure is written all over it.

"I'm good. Just…uh…watching my step," he offers, by way of lame excuse for his silence and dawdling pace.

Kate tilts her head to one side and narrows her eyes. "You sure, 'cause—"

Castle looks over her shoulder, drawing in a sharp breath. "Is that the _lake_?"

Kate smiles instantly and nods. "Yeah. Isn't it beautiful?" she says, glancing back over her shoulder as if to reconfirm its presence.

They turn to look at it together, shoulders and elbows nudging on the narrow path as Kate shades her eyes with her hand. The sun sparkles blindingly on the surface, and Castle is glad of his sunglasses when he fishes them out of his pocket and slips them on.

Kate slides her hand into his and squeezes his fingers lightly. "Come on," she says, leading him to the edge of the clearing, "not far now."

_TBC..._


	30. Chapter 30 - She Loves Me

_A/N: Back from vacation, so picking up where we left off if anyone's still with me..._

* * *

**Chapter 30: She Loves Me**

_Previously…_

_"Hey, you okay back there? You're kinda quiet," notes Kate, pausing suddenly on the path to turn around and check on him._

_Thankfully Castle's mental gymnastics mean he's fallen slightly behind and so he doesn't go barreling straight into her when she stops. He catches up in a handful of strides, schooling his face so she can't see the expression of pure love-struck awe he's sure is written all over it._

_"I'm good. Just…uh…watching my step," he offers, by way of lame excuse for his silence and dawdling pace._

_Kate tilts her head to one side and narrows her eyes. "You sure, 'cause—"_

_Castle looks over her shoulder, drawing in a sharp breath. "Is that the lake?"_

_Kate smiles instantly and nods. "Yeah. Isn't it beautiful?" she says, glancing back over her shoulder as if to reconfirm its presence._

_They turn to look at it together, shoulders and elbows nudging on the narrow path as Kate shades her eyes with her hand. The sun sparkles blindingly on the surface, and Castle is glad of his sunglasses when he fishes them out of his pocket and slips them on._

_Kate slides her hand into his and squeezes his fingers lightly. "Come on," she says, leading him to the edge of the clearing, "not far now."_

* * *

Kate's fingers are hooked around Castle's, their palms kissing. Her skin feels cool and dry against his despite the shimmering heat of the day. She tows him behind her to the very end of the worn path like a colorful kite on a string, her steps quickening in time with her excitement, the line between them – her arm – growing taut as she tugs him closer.

"Last few," she murmurs so quietly that Castle wonders if she's actually speaking to him or merely talking to herself.

The clearing finally opens out and suddenly they are standing on the elevated bank of Lake Mohegan looking out upon the dark, glittering surface of the reservoir, all 3.1 square miles of it. The water laps ceaselessly at the sandy shore below their feet; blinding, glinting light dancing off every ripple the onshore breeze cares to stir on the reservoir's glassy surface.

"Wow. Just…_wow!_" utters Castle quietly, reverently. He tears his eyes away from the cool, sparkling water of the lake to look down at Kate when he feels her squeeze his hand.

"You like?" she grins girlishly, very much sounding as if she's looking for his approval, which is beyond endearing coming from normally steely, self-assured Detective Beckett.

"When you said cabin…Kate, you…you kind of played this whole thing down. These woods, the cabin itself, and now this—" he says, sweeping one arm wide to encompass the lake. "I…I know I hated that period and I've given you kind of a hard time about it, about coming up here to heal…but if I'd known—"

"Known what?" asks Kate, leaning into his side so that he lets go of her hand and puts his arm around her shoulders instead, tucking her in against his body.

They both stand like that for a moment: propped up against one another, swaying slightly as they face the water - the vast, navy, cleanness of it all - and once he catches his breath and untangles his twisty, emotional, complex thoughts on that time, he lets all that's left to say, the new insights he's gained by being here at his own ground zero*, pour out.

"If I'd known…_so_ many things," he sighs, looking straight ahead, his gaze trained on the far distance behind his dark sunglasses.

"Talk to me," requests Kate, her eyes locked onto the same vanishing point.

"Don't hate me," he murmurs, glancing sideways before charging on. "You know I can be…_selfish_."

"I couldn't hate you if I tried, Castle," she admits quietly, since this long ago became an absolute given for her. She briefly drops her head to rest on his shoulder in a gesture of complete and unrestrained affection. "So…just say it. Whatever it is."

"Okay," he replies, kissing the top of her head and then blowing out a breath. "Number one—_Oh_, and these are in no particular order," he warns, holding up a supplicating hand, his fingers spread so wide that the skin blanches white in places.

"_Castle,_" chides Kate, with a chuckle, nudging his ribs with her elbow. His delaying tactics are making her nervous. "Spit it out."

"Okay. Number one, had I known there was no Josh," he begins, counting out points on his fingers.

He pauses, waiting for her response, sporting a comical wince that closes one eye and hunches his shoulders as if he expects blowback of some kind.

"Go on," she says levelly, rolling her eyes but saying no more, because if it had been her and there had been a female-Josh…she doesn't know how she'd have fared either.

"Too predictable?"

"Stop delaying. What else?" she cajoles, bumping her hip against his.

"Had I known how comfortable, safe, and…and _beautiful_ this place is..."

"Did you think I was living in a drafty shack making fire by rubbing sticks together?" she jokes, chuckling until she looks up at him and sees he isn't joining in the joke.

"It's—"

"What? Tell me?" she asks, earnestly.

"Just…so different than I imagined it would be. Peaceful, but not in any...extreme wilderness, survivalist prepper kind of way. And just so, so _beautiful._"

"Okay. I'll give you that one," she concedes, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looks out over the water once more, a grateful smile crinkling the spot where her dark lashes meet her cheeks. "Is there more?"

"This lake. Water is…it's just _healing…spiritual…_ That's how I always feel out in the Hamptons. It's like my blood pressure drops and my heart rate slows the second I can hear waves lapping at the shore...and this is a _lot_ of water."

"I know, right?" grins Kate, turning to look at him, her hand coming to rest on his arm as natural as anything. "That was my goal. Right from the start," she enthuses, squeezing his biceps. "_That_ was my goal," she repeats, nodding her head at the water.

"What?"

He's about to ask her if she swam from bank to bank but then he thinks better of it just in the nick of time. She's fit…well, _now_ she's fit, but not then. He's so glad he didn't make this stupid gaff when she explains the simple, much more modest and humbling goal she was aiming for back then.

"To make it down to the lake unaided."

"From...from the house?" he clarifies.

Castle swallows hard when Kate nods. But she continues unfazed and unaware of how much hearing this both touches and pains him. Touches him that she'd share her struggle openly with him, and pains him because he knows that if Kate set her mind to a simple goal like that, then her fight to achieve it must have equated to a climb up a mountainside in her bare feet.

"You see that dock over there?" she asks, pointing to a boating dock he hadn't noticed. It's sturdy, about fifty yards long, stretching out into the lake itself, sitting just a few yards down the shore from where they're standing. "That's what I wanted to show you."

* * *

Kate beams with pride as she leads him out onto the solid, well-maintained, wooden structure. Planked in silver-gray wood, polished nail heads catching the sun like scattered sequins at regular intervals along their length, the dock extends out into the lake until it's deep enough to moor a dingy, waverunner or a motorboat with a modest draft. Spaced wooden posts carry a string of lights from shore to tip that must look like tiny hovering fireflies when illuminated at dusk, adding to the total romance of the setting.

As they make their way down the boardwalk, Castle notices that the pilings are bearded in thick green weeds that shimmy and sway like mermaid hair in the ebb and flow of the lake's incessant movement. He can even make out the silvery flash of small fish darting randomly back and forth a few inches below the surface in the crystal clear water that surrounds them.

"747 steps to this point," she says, sounding triumphant even now when they reach the very end of the dock.

"You counted?" asks Castle, slightly amused by her proclamation.

Kate nods resolutely. "Every step. Every time. I counted in my head at first when I needed all my breath to just put one foot in front of the other," she explains happily, lightly, no hint of self-pity or the pain and frustration she must have endured at the time.

She takes a deep breath, a lungful of the fresh but surprisingly warm air wafting towards them on the breeze, as if to prove to the world that she can, before she continues.

"First few times I only made it as far as that fallen tree trunk back there," she tells him, turning her back on the water to point in the direction they've just come.

The rotting tree is a mere handful of steps down the path from the house, Castle recalls, having watched her blithely step over it today without even breaking stride.

"My dad came out and found me sitting on that mossy old log, swearing at the sky while I clutched my side in agony."

Kate shakes her head and laughs at the memory, turning to glance at Castle to share the joke with him. But he can find nothing in her recollection to laugh at right now. He briefly wonders if he ever will and how Kate has managed to reconcile herself with the pain and uncertainty of that period in her life: of her long, lonely path to recovery and the uncertainty that surrounded her fight back to health. She cut herself off, hid out here, licking her wounds, staying under the radar mostly for his sake…

"How can you—I mean…you just _laughed_ at that, Kate. But..._I know you._ Must have damn near killed you not to be able to walk…_what?_ Less than half a mile from the cabin to get out here?"

He hopes he doesn't come off sounding harsh or that she can tell the difference, that he isn't being critical or challenging the validity of her feelings. They are her feelings after all.

"Dr. Burke and time," she replies calmly, surprising him a little. "We can laugh at the dirty bomb now, right?" she shrugs. "Just takes time."

"Almost," he admits, grudgingly. "Might need a double shot of that tequila you sneaked into your bag before I can laugh at the freezer incident though," he says, treating her to a wink and a devilish grin. "Share your stash and I'll laugh at whatever you want, Beckett."

* * *

Kate suddenly turns her body into his and cups his face between her hands. "I want you to be okay with this," she whispers earnestly, standing on tiptoe to kiss him gently. "Or as okay as you can be," she quickly amends. She feathers her lips over his and then returns for a firmer, more desperate kiss that leaves them both a little breathless and dizzy. She rests her forehead against his, her hands dropping to grip his shoulders for balance while they both catch their breath. "So, I'm walking you through it, piece by piece, if that's okay?"

Castle can't believe he's being let into her recovery, her thinking at that time, so fully. She's normally such a private person, so that all of this would be off-limits, especially anything that showed her to be less than her strong, steely self, physically or mentally. "More than—" he croaks, having to pause and clear his throat. "More than okay. I—this is what I need, I think."

"Well, good," she nods, giving him a tentative smile. "Because this I can do. But you tell me to stop anytime. I won't be offended."

She takes his hand again and tugs on it gently. "Come. Let's sit," she suggests, dropping to her butt at the head of the dock so that she can dangle her legs off the end.

Castle copies her, sitting down beside her, enjoying relief from the heat on land now that they are effectively sitting out on the water.

The breeze ruffles their hair and Kate produces a hair tie from somewhere, her wrist he things, deftly securing her curls into a bun at the nape of her neck. She closes her eyes after a few seconds, kicking her heels off the underside of the dock so they make a rhythmic thud, thud, thud, against the weathered wood. Castle finds his own eyes closing and he lets out a long, slow breath, until he's breathing in time with the bump of Kate's sneakers.

He hears a movement and feels her body leave his briefly as she leans away. The warm air swirls between them. There's a dry sweeping sound when she smoothes her hand over the silvery planking beside her. "Still here," he hears her whisper, causing him to open his eyes in curiosity.

"Mm? Sorry. You say something?" he asks, blinking in the brightness despite his dark glasses, allowing his own legs to swing along with Kate's.

She leans away again and he hears the click and clatter of pebbles he cannot see falling over, hidden from him on Kate's other side.

"These," she says, handing him a flat, smooth stone, "were my trophies when I made it down here. Proof that I had managed the journey. My…my little markers," she says, running the tip of her finger over one particularly sharp, pointed stone.

When she leans back against her hands, he sees that the stones she collected are piled at the end of the dock: flat, smooth, flint-like stone, perfect for skimming and perfect for use as a kind of Neanderthal carving tool, it would also appear.

"I used this one," she tells him, holding up the sharpened stone, tapping the point with her fingertip, "to carve into the wood."

"Carve?" frowns Castle, shaking his head. "I…I don't understand?"

"Here," smiles Kate, leaning back even further so that he can see properly.

Initials – _their initials_ – have been carved into the silvery gray wood of the final piling at the very end of the boardwalk, right by Kate's left thigh. The inscription is rough, rudimentary, the etching scratched into the wood with an almost childlike naivety, though it's clear enough to read nonetheless. Castle feels tears prick his eyes behind his glasses even as a bubble of amusement, a need to tease Kate about this sentimental gesture, rises in his chest because it's just so unexpected.

"Just how _strong_ were those painkillers?" he chokes out, laughing when Kate sucks in an indignant breath, her own eyes sparkling with mirth when she permits herself to snigger, both easing the tension of the moment.

"_Hey!_ I'm trying to be romantic," she declares, swatting his arm.

"I know you are and that is _so_...sweet," he says, stretching across to run the tip of his finger over their initials, to swirl it around the jagged little heart Kate created to encapsulate them. "And just _so_ unlike you," he blurts right after, watching as Kate looks down at her lap and nods slowly, a shy grin on her face.

"I guess it was a little out of character," she concedes, sneaking a bashful look at him before looking down at her hands again. "But I was up here alone for a _really_ long time," she rebuts, in her own defense.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Kate. I love it...that there is a part of me out here already. That you were even thinking about me when you were up here. It's...I don't know," he shrugs, at a loss for words. "Proof or something."

"We all need proof of magic from time to time," Kate replies, cleverly, speaking to him on his own terms. "Even you," she adds, playfully bumping her shoulder against his.

"Well, thank you for mine," he agrees, kissing her cheek.

* * *

Castle picks up one of the smooth stones and cups it in his hands, warming its cool, gray weight between his palms for a minute or so, and then he draws his powerful arm back and propels the stone out across the water, sending it whistling through the air. The stone skips and bounces four or five times off the lake's dark surface before finally disappearing altogether.

"Somehow I knew you'd be good at that," grins Kate, handing him another stone.

"Tell me more about how these got here?" asks Castle, warming the second stone like he did the first.

"I'd count the steps from the cabin, like I said. Force myself to go a little further each day. When I made it near the banking, I'd look for a stone to take out with me. A skimmer. Also, a kind of..._symbol_, I guess, of my having made it out here all by myself."

"Stones symbolize the permanence of memory," mutters Castle, reexamining the pebble in his hand.

"Pardon me?"

"In...in Judaism, when mourners place stones or pebbles on a grave," he explains, "it symbolizes the permanence of memory - that the deceased is not forgotten after a loved one visits the burial site and then leaves."

"Ah," nods Kate, "I see."

"Some people also believe the pile of stones keeps the deceased's soul underground where it dwells for a time after death. Stones are more than a marker of one's visit; they are the means by which the living help the dead to 'stay put'. '_There are men with hearts of stone, and stones with the hearts of men',_" he quotes, in a theatrical, Martha Rodgers voice.**

"How do you _know_ so much about this?" she asks, continually amazed at the endless stream of random facts and the breadth of knowledge her partner seems to possess.

"_Research!_" they both say at once, laughing together at their perfect timing.

* * *

"Sorry, I interrupted. Tell me more about the stones and the carving," Castle asks, when their laughter dies down.

"Yeah, _so_ it was on one of those trips that I hit my turning point. Knew I had to stop working so hard to forget you and start working even harder to get back to you. That's when I carved this," she explains, fingering her own crude artwork. "I needed a new goal."

She pauses for a second, shielding her eyes to look out at the horizon again, her cheeks pink from the sun and maybe a little tinged with embarrassment. She looks down at the flat stone in her hand, spinning it in the center of her palm, her teeth embedded in her lip, before she hazards a quick glance in his direction. "I resolved to…to protect you if necessary so that we could make a go of something. But, Castle, I—"

"What took you so long?" he interjects, seizing this chance to understand exactly what she was thinking back then when he had no way to reach her, to look in her eyes and attempt to read her mind like he's been trying to since the very beginning. "When you got back, I mean. If that's what you'd decided?"

"You were there. You…you were _right_ there, exactly where I left you, and I got too comfortable with how things were. With taking things slowly, seeing Burke…all my _safe_ little routines. I didn't want to rock the boat, I guess. I was coping with Gates, getting my fitness levels up..._trying_ to be better, lighter, _happier_. Just being back on the job was exhausting. But I am sorry."

"Did it slip your mind…this new resolve? This...this _goal_ of yours? Did…did you lose your nerve, Kate? _What?_"

Castle's sharp tone makes her wince and when she turns to look at him he's shaking his head, eyes already full of remorse for lashing out. This is old news, but still painful in the re-visiting for both of them.

"I'm sorry," he says, contritely. "I didn't mean for you to feel under attack."

"That's okay. No need to apologize. I don't know that I could be as forgiving in your shoes."

Castle falls silent for a moment and then Kate hears him clearing his throat, gearing up to say something else. "So…if things hadn't come to a head…the other day…we'd still be—?"

Kate nods, rubbing her palm over the dusty plank where their initials dwell for all eternity, entwined within their roughly etched heart, barring extreme weather, fire or some freak boating accident that takes out the entire dock. "Probably. Maybe. I don't know," she grits out, her frustration at her own inertia and lack of courage during that period bubbling over. "I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer, Castle. But that doesn't change how I feel about you," she tells him earnestly, reaching for his hand. "_That _was real…_always_," she insists, lacing her fingers with his. "Even way out here."

_TBC... _

_P.S. Sorry about the slightly bum note this one ended on. They're fine really, you'll see. They're just working through a few things, since we never got to hear how any of that went down on the show. ;)_

* * *

_Notes: *By Ground Zero I mean to describe the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation. In the case of an explosion above the ground, ground zero refers to the point on the ground directly below the detonation i.e. the point of most severe damage or destruction. The term is often used for disasters that have a geographic or conceptual epicenter. I was not referring to or comparing Castle's loss to 9/11 in any way, for the avoidance of doubt._

_**'There are people with a heart of stone. There are stones with a human heart.' Hakotel, The Wall. This quote used by Castle was taken from an Israeli Folk Song because Kate's stones made me think of this Jewish tradition, even though I'm not Jewish and know very little about that faith. I just couldn't get out of my head that she marked her presence at the end of the dock by leaving a stone each time she made the trip unaided. I hope I haven't offended anyone by borrowing, misinterpreting or including it. _


	31. Chapter 31 - Loving Means Forgiving

_A/N: Thank you to everyone who continues to read, review and enjoy this story. I'm sorry I can't reply to each of you. It is a slow tale, delving into the nuances of emotion that each of these characters have been through during a pivotal period of their relationship - a period we saw little of on the show. As one of my readers recently reminded me - that is the joy of fan fiction: we have endless time._

_So, if 'slow' and 'nuance' are not words in your vocabulary and you don't care what happened 'off screen' during those three months, I'd recommend you jump ship now. I ignore anonymous, negative, badly spelled reviews, and they do not deter me from the story path I've chosen, because this is my boat and I'll pilot it my way. You have been warned. ;)_

_Have a great weekend. Liv x_

* * *

**Chapter 31: Loving Means Forgiving**

_Previously…_

_"Sorry, I interrupted. Tell me more about the stones and the carving," Castle asks, when their laughter dies down._

_"Yeah, __so __it was on one of those trips that I hit my turning point. Knew I had to stop working so hard to forget you and start working even harder to get back to you. That's when I carved this," she explains, fingering her own crude artwork. "I needed a new goal."_

_She pauses for a second, shielding her eyes to look out at the horizon again, her cheeks pink from the sun and maybe a little tinged with embarrassment. She looks down at the flat stone in her hand, spinning it in the center of her palm, her teeth embedded in her lip, before she hazards a quick glance in his direction. "I resolved to…to protect you if necessary so that we could make a go of something. But, Castle, I—"_

_"What took you so long?" he interjects, seizing this chance to understand exactly what she was thinking back then when he had no way to reach her, to look in her eyes and attempt to read her mind like he's been trying to since the very beginning. "When you got back, I mean. If that's what you'd decided?"_

_"You were there. You…you were __right __there, exactly where I left you, and I got too comfortable with how things were. With taking things slowly, seeing Burke…all my __safe __little routines. I didn't want to rock the boat, I guess. I was coping with Gates, getting my fitness levels up...__trying __to be better, lighter,__happier__. Just being back on the job was exhausting. But I am sorry."_

_"Did it slip your mind…this new resolve? This...this __goal __of yours? Did…did you lose your nerve, Kate? __What?__"_

_Castle's sharp tone makes her wince and when she turns to look at him he's shaking his head, eyes already full of remorse for lashing out. This is old news, but still painful in the re-visiting for both of them._

_"I'm sorry," he says, contritely. "I didn't mean for you to feel under attack."_

_"That's okay. No need to apologize. I don't know that I could be as forgiving in your shoes."_

_Castle falls silent for a moment and then Kate hears him clearing his throat, gearing up to say something else. "So…if things hadn't come to a head…the other day…we'd still be—?"_

_Kate nods, rubbing her palm over the dusty plank where their initials dwell for all eternity, entwined within their roughly etched heart, barring extreme weather, fire or some freak boating accident that takes out the entire dock. "Probably. Maybe. I don't know," she grits out, her frustration at her own inertia and lack of courage during that period bubbling over. "I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer, Castle. But that doesn't change how I feel about you," she tells him earnestly, reaching for his hand. "__That __was real…__always__," she insists, lacing her fingers with his. "Even way out here."_

* * *

"Don't think I ever told you about the showdown I had with Gates, did I?" he asks, breaking the uncomfortable silence that sits between them now, heavy as a rock.

Kate shakes her head and then manages to croak out a throaty "No," just loud enough for Castle to hear, since he's lying on his back, looking up, a little way below her.

She's disappointed. A blind man could sense it. The feeling churns in her gut, dark and sickening. "This why she kicked you out?" she adds, because as usual her interest is piqued by the possibility of magic offered by a Richard Castle story, even if her heart is currently swamped in regret, sinking like an inflatable dingy with a slow puncture, the outboard engine already flooded.

"Mm," murmurs Castle, staring up at the sky, where a lone cloud has appeared to briefly shroud the sun. "Why, when there's only one cloud in the entire sky, does it always find a way to cover the sun?" he muses loud. "Beckett, you ever notice that?" he asks, turning his head to look at her.

She hears the whisper of his hair as it slides across the bare skin of his inner forearm where his head rests, and she sighs with longing. She wants to kiss that soft, hairless skin again, to trail her fingers over its pale perfection in lazy, swirling patterns that follow the path of his veins, and then she wants to watch him shiver. She wants to slip her fingers through his hair again to feel its soft, impossibly silky texture; a dream only realized last night after four years in the making.

Soon, she promises herself.

"Um—" she frowns, distractedly, lost for an answer to his childlike enquiry.

"_Anyway_…" he says on an in-breath, resuming his story apparently, though which story Kate's not actually sure until he gets a little further along. "I…I'd been coming into the Precinct everyday since about a week after I came to visit you at the hospital. Gates had her feet well and truly under Roy's desk by then. Couldn't get so much as a smile out of LT. Poor guy looked traumatized. Actually, Ryan and Espo weren't faring much better," he adds, frowning at this sudden recollection.

He speaks without pausing, all the little memories of that difficult time running together, perhaps because he knows that to dwell on any individual moment would mean to be deluged by that impossible, bitter gloom once more.

'_Her precinct has no room for a dilettante writer playing cop.' _

Kate distinctly remembers Ryan telling her this the day she came back to work and asked why Gates had kicked Castle out. She can't believe she held onto some naïve hope that he would still be there, sitting by her desk, waiting for her, coffee in hand, on the off-chance she'd show up out of the blue one day after her broken promise to call; a broken promise that all but wrecked their years of partnership and all the hard earned trust they'd garnered between them, after three months of brooding, selfish, self-indulgent silence on her part.

"Kinda glad I missed all of that," she confesses, feeling bad that he didn't, that he had to navigate that stormy sea without her. "She was bad enough by the time I came back. _'If my mother drops by you can call her ma'am'_," mimics Kate, drawing a surprised look from Castle for her pretty accurate impersonation of Iron Gates.

"Well, I could tell she didn't like _me_ from the get-go. Something about the entirely undeserved dirty looks she gave me every time she had to leave her office and walk past your desk…kinda gave it away," he chuckles, quietly.

The sound of Castle's quiet, self-depreciating laughter eases the tension in Kate's shoulders, and she feels herself relaxing again.

"Anyway…I did my best to ignore her. Kept my head down, worked your shooting case with the guys as best I could, given we had no real leads or…well, anything to go on—"

"Rick—" Kate interrupts, guiltily.

"Don't," Castle replies, reading her mind as usual. "I'd do it all again...exact same way, if someone could promise me an identical end result," he tells her, giving her shoulder a gentle nudge.

Castle's boundless generosity softens her discomfort further, and she finds herself collapsing against the warm wooden boards of the dock to lie on her back and listen to him retell _his_ story of the time they spent apart. She pillows her arms behind her head and looks up at the wide, blue sky, so that they lie there side-by-side, legs dangling off the end of the pier, arms behind their heads, watching a wake of buzzards circle on the thermals high above them.

* * *

"You ever do this in your bedroom when you were a kid?" asks Castle, obliquely changing the subject, as Kate knows he's often apt to.

"Probably," she murmurs, before succumbing to a large, expressive yawn. "Why?"

"Didn't get much sleep last night, Detective?" Castle mischievously purrs in her ear.

Kate smirks, cracking one eye open. "As a matter of fact, someone kept me up most of the night."

"Sounds…_interesting._"

"Oh, it was."

"Do tell."

"You should know by now, I never kiss and tell," she whispers, letting her eyes drift closed.

"How about we just kiss then?"

There's a short, pregnant pause before Kate speaks again. "And make-up? Look, Castle, I am _so_ sorry," she tells him, rolling onto her side so that she can face him.

"Me too. You were only trying to fill in the blanks for me and I jumped down your throat. Forgive me for being such an ass?"

"Tell me about your bedroom ceiling and you're forgiven," she teases, relief flooding thorough her.

They lie back down beside one another and Castle fiddles around until he finds Kate's hand, clasping it in his own.

"_Well_…my room was small. Or at least the first few were. We moved around a lot… _Oh_, and then there was this one place—"

"_Castle!_" scolds Kate, starting to laugh.

"What?"

"You do know you've just started about three different stories and finished none of them."

He looks embarrassed for a mere second. "This is news to you? Come on, Beckett. I have a mind like _a butterfly_. But that's what keeps you interested, right?" he suggests, quirking one eyebrow at her.

"You think I'm interested in you because of your…what was that? Your _butterfly brain_?" she snorts, rolling over on top of him.

He barks out a surprised laugh as her knees slip either side of his hips until they hit the deck and she pins him down against the warm wooden boards with her hands on his shoulders. They grin at one another as the water laps at the bearded pilings beneath them.

"This boat dock got an actual boat?" asks Castle, waggling both his eyebrows at her suggestively this time.

"Back at the cabin."

"_Oh,_" he says, sounding deflated, and Kate nods, her face expressing the same sentiment, before suddenly brightening again.

"But I have an idea," she says, enthusiastically.

"You _do_?" asks Castle, in an exaggerated, stagey kind of way, playing up to Kate's tone, which is one of fun.

"Mm-hmm. We could go back up to the cabin and take that nap we talked about earlier," she suggests, shrugging lightly, as if she could take it or leave it.

"Hmm," hums Castle, pretending to ponder her suggestion for a moment. "Well, I did just hear you yawn a moment ago."

"Yes, and you…you _do_ look pretty tired," she says, her eyes twinkling mischief.

Castle suddenly sits up. Since Kate's attention has moved away from attempting to pin him down, she finds herself straddling his lap while his legs dangle off the end of the dock. She squeals, but he holds her tight around her waist to stop her toppling backwards into the lake.

Kate breathlessly drops her forehead against his shoulder, and then she slips her arms around his neck, her spine curved into an elegant arch as she leans into him.

"I missed you up here. I _really_ missed you, Rick," she whispers, painting her confession against the soft, damp skin beneath his collar.

The breeze stirs the lake and the lapping of the water against the dock gets a little louder.

"You have no idea how much I…I wish I'd been here with you. But we're both here now. Can we say that's all that matters?" he asks, rhythmically rubbing his hand over her spine.

Kate pulls back to look at him. Her expression is still a little sad.

"Can we?" presses Castle, voice still gentle, watching her from behind his dark glasses.

"We don't have a choice," replies Kate, biting her lip and glancing off down the shoreline. "I made it so that we don't have a choice, either of us."

"We always have choices, Kate. You just might not like some of them."

She turns her head round to face him, and after she removes his sunglasses, she looks him right in the eye. "So you're saying you can put the past behind us? This past…right here," she clarifies, sweeping one arm wide to encompass the land and the lake surrounding them.

"I'm saying I'm willing to give it a go. Look, we have a day and a half left up here. Why don't we try to enjoy it?" he suggests, gently tucking a flying curl behind her ear. "We can make the most of your dad's place and then make a plan to come back for a longer trip some other time? What do you say?"

Kate grins in surprise. "You really want to come back out here?"

"_Uh-huh!" _he says, as if she's crazy. "Beckett, I want to chop up wood with that badass chainsaw your dad has out in the shed and then light a fire in that big old hearth. I want us to wrap ourselves up in blankets, toast marshmallows, drink _insanely_ expensive wine, make hot chocolate and tell ghost stories until we're so scared we have to sleep with the lights on."

Kate laughs and her eyebrows shoot up. "You haven't spent a single night out here yet. I'd reserve judgment on those ghost stories until you've listened to the sounds coming out of that forest in the heart of darkness."

"_Really?_" he squeaks, eyes wide as saucers, fear and excitement both.

"Really," she whispers, ghosting her lips over his, adding, "But don't worry, Castle. I'll protect you," with a sexy smile, before she slides her fingers through his hair and slips her tongue into his mouth.

_TBC..._


	32. Chapter 32 - The King Of Cool

_A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews to the last chapter, both guests and logged in readers alike. _

_Keep forgetting to mention that I've been adding photos of the cabin to my Twitter feed each time I post a new chapter link on there. My Twitter name is on my Fan Fiction profile if you don't already follow me and would like to see the pictures. This time I'm adding a photo of the cabin's master bedroom. ;)_

* * *

**Chapter 32: The King Of Cool**

_Previously…_

_"We always have choices, Kate. You just might not like some of them."_

_She turns her head round to face him, and after she removes his sunglasses, she looks him right in the eye. "So you're saying you can put the past behind us? This past…right here," she clarifies, sweeping one arm wide to encompass the land and the lake surrounding them._

_"I'm saying I'm willing to give it a go. Look, we have a day and a half left up here. Why don't we at least try to enjoy it?" he suggests, gently tucking a flying curl behind her ear. "We can make the most of your dad's place and then make a plan to come back for a longer trip some other time? What do you say?"_

_Kate grins in surprise. "You really want to come back out here?"_

_"Uh-huh!" he says, as if she's crazy. "Beckett, I want to chop up wood with that badass chainsaw your dad has out in the shed and then light a fire in that big old hearth. I want us to wrap ourselves up in blankets, toast marshmallows, drink insanely expensive wine, make hot chocolate and tell ghost stories until we're so scared we have to sleep with the lights on."_

_Kate laughs and her eyebrows shoot up. "You haven't spent a single night out here yet. I'd reserve judgment on those ghost stories until you've listened to the sounds coming out of that forest in the heart of darkness."_

_"Really?" he squeaks, eyes wide as saucers, fear and excitement both._

_"Really," she whispers, ghosting her lips over his, adding, "But don't worry, Castle. I'll protect you," with a sexy smile, before she slides her fingers through his hair and slips her tongue into his mouth._

* * *

He chased her back along the wooden dock. Two excited sets of feet pounding the sturdy, weathered boards, the boom, boom, boom of their running, racing footfalls sending a small flock of birds scattering high into the air when they reached the shoreline and the welcoming shroud of emerald green trees.

Kate is fast, laughing, giddy and a little freaked out by Castle's hot pursuit. In her hopped up imagination it's as if he's some kind of handsy perp out to catch her and then tickle her and feel her up when he does. So she's laughing and she's breathless, and she's still faster than him. But by the time she hits the steps up to the cabin's front porch, Castle is so close to catching up with her that she's squealing like the little girl in pigtails who used to run up these self same steps with her daddy on her heels, his 'bogeyman' man voice _('daddy, do the bogeyman voice'_, she used to beg, scaring herself half to death when he did) chasing her into the cool of the house in search of her mom or a new place to hide.

"_Agh!_" she squeals, when Castle's outstretched hand brushes the back of her shirt, and she attempts to squirm out of his grasp while simultaneously peaking over her shoulder to confirm he's right on her tail.

She flings open the mesh screen door and then stumbles over the shady threshold panting for breath.

"I can't—" she grins, her hands on her knees, doubled over while she forces air back into her lungs. "I give in," she gets out, just as her partner comes to a halt beside her, his lungs in a burning hot mess just like hers, his chest heaving.

"Think I'm going to be sick," he hacks out, laughing through the pain and the nausea that's wracking his frame. "You sure that's…only…747 steps?" he gasps, tipping over to match Kate's stance, his hand on her back for balance.

"Mm-hmm. Sure," she says, straightening up slowly. She draws a slow breath in through her nose and then blows it out again through her mouth, trying to get her heart back into a normal rhythm, and then she repeats the cleansing breathing all over again.

"Water?" she murmurs, after a few seconds pass with her heart rate lower and her ribcage expanding with a little less force. She heads for the refrigerator lifting damp hair off her neck. "Castle, you want water?"

When she turns round, the writer is slumped over the kitchen counter, his perspiration-beaded forehead resting against the sleeve of his shirt. He doesn't answer her, just sticks one hand out and wiggles his fingers in her direction for the sweaty, cold, plastic bottle she slides into his palm, laughing.

"Look at us," she gasps, having just downed a third of the ice cold drink in one; relishing the burn down her esophagus and the icy trickle as the cold spreads to other parts of her superheated body. "We're pathetic."

"We're getting _old_, is what we are," murmurs Castle, half the words lost to the crook of his arm where he still lies prone on top of the counter.

Kate leans over and deftly takes the cold bottle of water out of Castle's grasp in one smooth move. She has it nestled against the bare nape of his neck, where his collar is gaping leaving his exposed skin vulnerable, before he knows what's hit him.

"Son of a—_ugh!_" he yelps, sitting bolt upright on the stool he'd been precariously perched on.

Kate sniggers, shoulders shaking until he spins round, then she dances out of reach, giggling like a teenager. "Woke you up," she grins, when he turns narrowed eyes on her.

"I'll show you woken up, Detective," growls Castle, launching himself off the stool and heading straight for Kate.

"_Apples!_" she yells, pirouetting on the spot and turning towards the old wooden staircase.

"Nah-ah, Beckett. That's _my_ safe word. Won't work for you."

"_Cherries!_" she giggles, squealing as he pounds up the steps behind her, so close she can feel the air movement between him.

* * *

Kate slams through the wooden panelled door of the master bedroom just as Castle catches up with her, his hands grasping her waist, warm fingers slipping beneath her untucked white t-shirt and snagging the back of her jeans.

She stumbles into the center of the room and immediately spins to face him, her chest heaving, eyes alight with fire as she stares at her partner. "Finally got you up here," she pants, smiling, toying with his collar, her fingers still shaking.

She steps into his embrace without hesitation or fight; the race is over. Slipping her arm around his torso, the other high around his neck, she tugs so that their stomachs and thighs collide.

Castle grins back at her, utterly delighted, reflecting so much luminosity and excitement in his own gaze. "You know all you had to do is ask," he whispers, tilting his head a fraction so that he can kiss her, his mouth flirting with hers for half a second, noses slipping past one another like two halves of a puzzle, before he seals the deal.

Kate moans without restraint when he slides his hands down her back to cup her ass and then squeezes hard, urging her even closer. "God," she curses breathlessly, biting his lower lip and then stifling his follow-up rumble of complaint with her soothing tongue and the silencing closure of her mouth claiming his.

Someone begins tugging on clothing - she's not exactly sure whom - but all of a sudden her shirt is on the floor and her belt is undone and the zipper of her jeans seems to have slid down all by itself. She hears the tinkle of loose change as Castle's pants hit the deck, catching the glint of a shiny dime rolling away under the bed. She'll dig it out later, or maybe she won't. A little reminder of them, of today, hidden away until someone decides that the cabin needs a good spring clean and the furniture gets moved wouldn't hurt. It would be nice to know that something of his is still here when they head back to the city after all.

* * *

Within no time they're down to their underwear. Well, almost. Castle has his plaid shirt off, but his undershirt is currently trapped over his head, since he attempted to whip it off while Kate interfered with his bellybutton.

"Stop. Beckett, can't see," he giggles through the white cotton mask currently obscuring his face, squirming as she tortures him some more.

He emits the most unmanly of shrieks when she swirls her tongue around the outside of his left nipple and then sucks the tiny pink numb into her mouth without warning.

"Mm," Kate hums against his skin, slipping two fingers beneath the back waistband of his white boxers, while she lavishes attention on the other nipple.

Castle stumbles backward, but she steadies him with firm hands on his hips and then helps to untangle the undershirt from around his arms and head.

His hair is an adorable, rumpled mess when he's finally free of the rogue t-shirt, and his cheeks are pink with the exertion of the last ten minutes. "Trying to kill a guy?" he smirks, tossing the shirt over his shoulder and instantly reaching for Kate.

"Now what would be the point of that?" grins Kate, shaking her head. "No, I want you alive and well and in my bed," she explains, chewing her lip as she coyly beckons him backwards towards the side of the old bed with one finger crooked. The fingers of her other hand are firmly tucked around the elastic of his underwear, towing him along like a male stripper hustling for singles.

When they reach the side of the bed Kate's thighs hit the seriously fluffy, down-filled duvet and she sits down hard, drawing Castle with her. He manages to plant his hands either side of her ribcage a mere nanosecond before falling on top of her, bracing the rest of his weight with one knee in between her open thighs. Kate bounces on the over-stuffed mattress and they untangle themselves, laughing.

"You look—"

Castle stares down at Kate in awe and wonder, reaching out with his free hand to tenderly skim her cheek with the back of his knuckles. "I don't think I've ever loved you more, you know that?" he says, and Kate swallows thickly as she watches his gaze flit from her eyes to her lips and back again, over and over.

"Hey," she whispers softly, tugging on his arm, "come lie down with me."

* * *

Castle readily lies down beside Kate on the big, puffed up bed, which is redolent of _The Princess and the Pea_. They settle onto their sides to face one another, shifting to get comfortable on what feels like a foot or so of deep eiderdown. He can't stop looking at her or touching her now that they're up here alone at the top of the house in what would have been her parents' room when Kate was a child. She watches as he leans in to tuck her hair behind her ear and then leans a little closer still to press his lips to her cheek and then brush another kiss across her forehead, making her eyes flutter closed.

The wooden beams above them are exposed, lending the room warmth, even in wintertime. An overhead light made up of miniature carriage lamps is suspended above the bed and matching carriage lights hang like sconces from the walls either side of the main window. In an echo of the downstairs decor, one wall is clad in stone, and this is the wall that harbors a small hearth and chimneybreast built into the lake-facing corner of the room. Castle's fantasies about smoky wood fires, sumptuous fur rugs, expensive champagne and a naked Kate Beckett lying sprawled on the floor crystalize in his imagination, and suddenly he can't wait for fall to arrive this year.

Kate watches him, so solemn and reverent in his worship of her, and she can't help wondering if this is how things would have turned out between them had she asked him to follow her up here all those months ago, when they were still merely work partners, on the outside at least. That he cares for her has long been an open secret shared by many who know them. How much he cares for her and how diligently he is capable of physically loving her is only just becoming apparent, even to Kate. She finds herself aching with regret for everything she caused them both to miss out on by being, in turns, stubborn, cautious and afraid.

"Don't let me hide from this…_ever_," she murmurs, breaching the tiny space between them to kiss Castle on the corner of the mouth.

"What?" he asks, staring into her eyes, watching the swirl of emotions pass across them just as he's sure the same thing is happening to him.

"You know me better than anyone, Castle. Don't let me run or…or push you away. No matter how hard things get."

"Just how hard do you think—?"

"Shh," hushes Kate, touching a finger to his lips. "Just promise me."

"I—Okay, I promise," he agrees, never looking more serious than at this moment.

"That's all I needed to hear," smiles Kate, running a hand through his hair.

Castle sighs with pleasure at her touch and leans into her hand, wanting closer, seeking more. "Keep doing that and I'll promise anything you want," he admits, closing his eyes, his body relaxing.

"Good to know," smirks Kate, continuing to card her fingers through his hair; touching it is a revelation.

* * *

She cups his jaw and then leans in to kiss him again, her fingers feathering over the strong bone beneath his skin. Her mouth moves gently over his, brushing at first, teasing the soft surface of his lips with her own, until they both shiver and Kate briefly breaks away to bury her face in his neck, momentarily overwhelmed. Her warm breath tickles his ear and Castle cups the back of her head, cradling her against his shoulder for a few seconds until she reemerges, desperate to kiss him again. Her gentleness draws soft kisses from him in return, and their lips tingle with the newness of this shared intimacy.

Shy smiles curve their mouths into ridiculously happy crescents every few seconds as they stare in wonder at one another. Castle reaches out to touch Kate's face, mapping her high cheekbones, her chiseled jaw, her nose, her eyelids and strong brow with the delicate, inquisitive touch of a blind man. Being so close and allowing himself to touch her like this is akin to yet another confession; another layer of _'this is how much I love and adore you, Kate Beckett.'_

The kissing becomes heated very soon after that, and Kate falls onto her back when Castle abandons her mouth to trail greedy, open-mouthed kisses down her neck and over her flushed chest. She cradles his head, still stroking his silken hair, abandoning herself to the absolute ecstasy of letting this man love her, until he peels back the sheer lace of her bra, capturing her breast in his mouth, making her arch right up off the bed.

When Castle finally enters her and they begin to move together, slowly, mindful of every gasp and shiver, every sigh and shift they each make as they work together to achieve another glimpse of that starry, sparkly, magnificent nirvana they have begun to visit together, Kate finds herself adrift on a sea of sensation the likes of which she has never before experienced in this place, if ever.

In no time at all they peak together, crying out in unison when they come, sweaty and breathless in the warm, stuffy bedroom, with their underwear in disarray, though miraculously still on, and the rest of their clothes scattered widely over the floor.

"I love you, Kate. I love you," whispers Castle, his voice tight with urgency, shaking with emotion as he presses a tender kiss to her bruised lips. As if he still needs her to believe.

Kate scuffs her cheek against his, needing to stay close to him, relishing the burn of his stubble against her damp skin. She curls her fingers around his neck, drawing him to her, and she whispers back, "I love you too, Castle. Thank you. Thank you for waiting for me."

They remain wrapped up in one another until the sweat begins to dry on their skin and the air grows cool. Kate tugs a fur throw up from the bottom of the bed to cover them, and they lie inside this warm cocoon, whispering quietly about something and nothing until they drift off, slipping in and out of a lazy, sated doze.

* * *

"Tell me about your showdown with Gates?" asks Kate, when they finally reawaken in time to bear witness to the setting sun. She reads the shift in expression on Castle's face instantly; the darkness her request stirs. "I mean…you don't have to obviously. It's just, earlier you—"

Castle gives her a tired smile. "It's okay. I want to," he nods, reassuring her.

"When was this?" asks Kate, because like Castle, she's still keen to fill in the blank portions from that period; when they spent more time apart than at any point in the previous four years of their partnership.

Castle rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling, one arm propped beneath his head for support. "Uh…'bout six weeks after you came up here. Guess she just had enough of looking at my sorry face by then."

"What? And that's it? She just kicked you out? I thought you said you had a showdown with her," Kate frowns, touching her fingers to Castle's creased forehead to smooth out the lines that have formed there too.

She sweeps the damp bangs off his face and they stick straight up. He looks a little ridiculous, like an older, more rugged version of Mario Lopez, but still sexy, so she leaves them like that. He can kill her when he looks in the mirror later. He's über sensitive about his hair, she's been discovering.

"Not exactly," admits Castle, giving her a shifty look.

"Okay, I knew there had to be more. So what'd you do?"

Castle sits up, laughing but indignant, dragging the fur throw with him so that Kate is forced to sit up too. "Why would you assume _I_ did something?"

"Rick?" she says, giving him _that look_. "Because you _always_ do something."

Castle deflates a little in the face of this truth. "Okay. So I _may_ have had a little run in with one of the other detectives."

"May have? And who exactly are we talking about here?"

"Parsons…from Robbery."

Kate frowns, trying to place the man from memory.

"You know, the jackass with the flattop. Boys call him 'The King of Cool' cause he rides an old motorbike. Thinks he's Steve McQueen or something."

Kate laughs, covering her mouth with her hand to stop the sound from getting any louder in the quiet of the little house. She draws her knees up to her chest and curls up facing Castle.

"You mean the mint condition, 1964 BSA Spitfire Hornet in the parking garage?"

"Yeah, that," says Castle, dismissively, waving his hand to indicate his lack of interest in the cop's vintage bike. "And I can't believe you know that about him," he adds, looking a little crestfallen, a little cheated on.

"Doesn't mean I like the jackass," Kate points out, poking Castle in the ribs until he squirms and has to crack a smile.

"So…tell me more…and leave nothing out," she warns, secretly delighted, since she never liked the older cop with his out-of-date attitude towards the women on the job.

"I came in one morning as usual, two cups of coffee on the off-chance that you'd—" He stops, looking guiltily at Kate. She watches him brushing his fingers back and forth over the smoky brown fur throw for comfort, and her chest begins to ache. "Well, anyway—"

"Castle," says Kate, quietly. "Castle?" she repeats, reaching for his hand when he doesn't respond. She shakes her head when she finally looks at him, blinking away tears. "I would have been no good to you…to either of us back then. But I am sorry," she whispers, swiping a tear from her cheek. "I'm sorry you had to go through all of that alone."

Castle nods and clears his throat. "So, anyway, this day I come in and Parsons is sitting at _your desk._ Guy's on the phone, leaning back in your chair with his dirty feet up on the desk, _playing_ with one of your elephants. So I just lost it."

"Oh god," utters Kate, covering her hand with her mouth, her eyes growing wide.

"We'd been working the lead on the warehouse in Union City where the bank records were stored. Finally thought we were getting somewhere. But I'd just learned about the fire…another dead end. Took the report home with me the night before to pore over it, even called my pyromaniac guy—"

"Sorry," frowns Kate, staring at Castle. "You..you have a _pyromaniac pal_?"

"I didn't say he was a friend exactly, but yeah…guy I've used for research in the past. I asked him to take a look at the report, see if it looked like an accident to him."

Kate nods, accepting that this explanation makes sense, that it's the kind of thing they'd have done together had she been around to help.

"Anyway, point is, we'd hit another road block and now we were out of leads. Gates was already putting pressure on the guys to drop it and move on to other cases. I offered to pay for their time, but she was having none of it. Said we would do things _her_ way or not at all."

"What happened with Parsons?"

"Let's just say I didn't get to drink my coffee that morning and Ryan and Espo didn't get a chance to toss for your cup either."

"And Gates saw all of this?"

Castle nods, a faint smile curling his lips at the memory. "She'd been looking for any excuse to get rid of me anyway. It was my own fault," admits Castle. "She hauled me into her office. I'm pretty sure they could hear her all the way down in lockup. I begged for another chance, promised I'd make myself invisible if it helped, make a large donation to the charity of her choice…_anything_. She told me to go home and get over it, that she didn't want to see my sorry face inside her precinct ever again, and if she did she'd lock me up herself."

"Ouch!" winces Kate. "That's pretty harsh."

Castle nods. "I was…I was gutted, truth be told. Going in there everyday was the only thing holding me up. It was a routine I could cling to. It was where you were…for me…in my imagination anyway. I used to look up every time those damn elevator doors opened and—"

He looks off to one side and coughs to clear his throat. Kate bites her lip, fresh tears threatening to spill over any second. She lays a consoling hand on his arm.

"Anyway," whispers Castle, clearing his throat once more. "Here we are."

Kate smiles at him wanly. "I think that's my line."

"No." Castle shakes his head. "No, I'll settle for _'Castle, I love you'_ any day of the week. That's your line from now on. That's all I need to hear from you and…and everything's good."

Kate looks down, her cheeks flaming at the power and honesty behind Castle's admission. "You amaze me, you know that?"

"_Me?_" he asks, tapping his chest.

Kate grins, nodding, rising up onto her knees and crawling into his lap. "Yeah, you. Come here," she whispers, leaning in to kiss him again, as she slides down to straddle him.

_TBC..._


	33. Chapter 33 - Last Night at Red Lobster

_A/N: Thank you for your kind messages and comments. They're what keep me writing. And if you've had enough, that's okay too._

_A lighter chapter to take us through the weekend. Enjoy!_

* * *

**Chapter 33: Last Night at the Red Lobster***

_Previously…_

_"I was…I was gutted, truth be told. Going in there everyday was the only thing holding me up. It was a routine I could cling to. It was where you were…for me…in my imagination anyway. I used to look up every time those damn elevator doors opened and—"_

_He looks off to one side and coughs to clear his throat. Kate bites her lip, fresh tears threatening to spill over any second. She lays a consoling hand on his arm._

_"Anyway," whispers Castle, clearing his throat once more. "Here we are."_

_Kate smiles at him wanly. "I think that's my line."_

_"No." Castle shakes his head. "No, I'll settle for 'Castle, I love you' any day of the week. That's your line from now on. That's all I need to hear from you and…and everything's good."_

_Kate looks down, her cheeks flaming at the power and honesty behind Castle's admission. "You amaze me, you know that?"_

_"Me?" he asks, tapping his chest._

_Kate grins, nodding, rising up onto her knees and crawling into his lap. "Yeah, you. Come here," she whispers, leaning in to kiss him again, as she slides down to straddle him._

* * *

After a round two that is anything but slow, they collapse against the damp sheets in the big old, over-stuffed bed to catch their breath.

Once their heart rates have returned to normal, they lie in bed talking until the sunset dies and day turns to dusk. The moon is up, not full, but giving off enough light to throw pale, silvery rectangles out across the wooden floor. Kate's getting hungry and she knows Castle must be hungry too, but she's so comfortable and warm pressed in against his side, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm reassuringly heavy around her. His large hand is splayed flat and sitting perfectly against the small of her back, so when her partner starts to speak again, the slow movement of his drugging fingers hypnotizing her, the low rumble of his voice in her ear, it gives her yet another wonderful excuse to stay in bed with him just a few minutes longer.

"You're different out here."

Castle's observation comes out of nowhere and throws her a little. They'd been talking about all the people they know - their friends at the precinct, Gates, Castle's poker buddies - sharing little insights, snippets of gossip, stories from all the times they weren't close enough to offer up these little intimacies lest they imply or infer or just downright say what everyone has been thinking for years – would these two just get it together, for the love of Pete.

So, _'You're different out here'_, comes as something of a surprise to Kate, since she's not sure where Castle is going with this observation. Should she even pursue it?

"Mm," she hums, sleepily, "…_really?_ How?" she eventually asks, pressing her lips to the dip between his clavicle and his shoulder in a gentle, soundless kiss.

Castle draws her closer in response to this spontaneous display of affection. They're drowning in one another today and neither of them wants it to end. The need to be close as humanly possible is overwhelming, and the ability to fulfil that need is so long overdue that all pretense of cool or suave or detached is abandoned in favor of relentless physical sensation and unabashed emotional bonding.

"Yeah. You're…happier. Less…less serious."

Kate clears her throat. "More fun? Is that what you're trying hard not to say? That I'm uptight back in the city?"

"You? Uptight?" Castle makes a face and shivers. "No, I could never be with anyone who was uptight. You're just a little more—"

He pauses, at a loss for a delicate way to say what he wants to say; hemmed into a tight spot of his own making. And why did he start down this dangerous road, he wonders, mentally bashing himself over the head.

"I'd stop digging if I were you," remarks Kate, eyes glinting up at him, enjoying his clear discomfort. "You have to spend two nights out here alone with me, remember. _In the woods._ Who'll protect you if the bogeyman comes?" she grins, hiding her smile against his chest.

God, he loves her like this – completely open with him for the first time ever. Having her naked and draped over his body in bed doesn't hurt either, but he'll keep that thought to himself. He doesn't want her getting any ideas about going anywhere anytime soon. He's too darned comfortable lying exactly here, in this spot, to ever move again.

Castle makes a scoffing sound. A scoffing sound that actually seems a little unsure, a little…scared by the end. "There is no bogeyman," he adds, sounding as if he's trying to convince himself more than Kate.

She looks at him, deadpan, and then she arches one eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

"Stop it," growls Castle, giving her a nudge with his hip.

His movement turns out to be more pelvic thrust than innocent nudge, judging by the way it makes her face grow flushed and has his mind sneaking off to nefarious places, before Kate drags them back on track.

"Anyway, of course I'm different. We're…we're _us_ now," she adds, her cheeks glowing pink for want of a decent title for what they are, one that won't make him tease her. They haven't really discussed it yet: how to define their relationship for the outside world. "And I'm more than my job, Castle," she points out, to keep the conversation moving forward, past this awkward question. "Being a detective…that's just a part of who I am. Anyway, you're different at home too…with your mom and Alexis. And when _Gina_ calls," she laughs, covering her mouth with her hand.

"_What?_ When Gina calls I'm _what_?" asks Castle, turning to stare at her, awaiting an explanation.

"Do you really want me to tell you?" she teases, fighting back another grin.

Castle shrugs. Does he really want to know what she thinks of him and his second ex-wife? "Maybe not," he concedes, settling back against the pile of pillows once more with a contented sigh.

Wise man. "Thought not," she smirks, giving him a playful poke in the ribs.

* * *

A few seconds later, Kate's stomach growls in revenge, and now Castle is the one laughing.

"Sounds like someone is a little hungry."

"Don't tell me you're not."

"Okay, I am. But is there somewhere that delivers around here? I'm _far_ too comfy to move right now," he whines, snuggling further under the fur blanket with Kate held firmly in place against him.

Kate struggles out of Castle's grasp to lean up on her elbows, all the better to see his face.

"You want _takeout_? Castle you packed a week's worth of groceries for two days. If we don't eat some of the food you brought it'll spoil. And then the bears will come," she tells him, walking her fingers up over his sternum and onto his chest as if they are an approaching bear.

He sits bolt upright in bed, dislodging her hand, and the rest of her, in the process. "_Bears?_ Beckett, you didn't say anything about bears."

"And we're up," sing-songs Kate, throwing her long legs over the side of the bed and standing. She stretches her aching limbs – all those new muscle groups in use reminding her of their recent contribution to the party.

"Cheat," grumbles Castle, watching his partner stretch her heavenly body in what can only be described as a provocative manner. He weighs up his odds of persuading her back under the covers and the possible outcome for him if he simply tackles her until she submits.

But then Kate turns to face him in all her naked glory and he loses the ability to speak, much less think or act.

"You hungry or not?" she asks, smirking when she realizes how discombobulated she's made him by just standing there in front of him with nothing on.

Castle shakes his head, as if clearing his lust-addled brain, in order that he can answer her question. "Is this how it's going to be?"

"Hmm?" asks Kate, rooting around in a drawer for some underwear.

"_You_ bossing me around at home _and_ at work?"

Kate pauses for just a second, absorbing the full impact of Castle's presumptuous statement. "Home and work," she nods, mulling his question over. "Guess we'll have to see. Why, is that a problem?" she asks, deliberately dangling a midnight blue lace bra from her fingertips to distract him some more.

Castle stares at the gently swaying lingerie, like it's an old fashioned pocket watch and Kate is attempting to hypnotize him. He has to blink hard and shake his head once more to reply with any conviction. "It's a deal breaker."

She pauses with her t-shirt halfway over her head and spins to look at him. "_Really?_"

"Unless…" he teases, leaning up on one elbow in bed, hair running in about ten different directions at once. So sexy she could just climb right back in there beside him, dammit.

Seems she's not the only one with seductive powers.

"Unless what?"

"I get to be boss in the bedroom."

Ha!

Kate laughs, wriggling her t-shirt down over her ribcage, her hips swaying appealingly in a pair of matching lace bikini briefs. "Are you kidding me?"

Castle looks wounded. "_No!_" he declares, indignantly, though he comes off a little unsure, as if he might be asking her a question.

Kate drops her hands to her hips and chews her lip for a second, thinking. "How about if we take turns?" she finally suggests.

Castle nods thoughtfully. "That could work," he agrees, knowing a good deal when he sees one.

"Shake on it?" asks Kate, sticking out her hand.

"Sure. Partners," says Castle, taking her hand in his.

"Great. Then it's your turn to cook dinner, _partner_," she giggles, as she shakes on the deal they just struck.

Outwitted again.

* * *

Downstairs, Kate sits quietly at the counter across from Castle while he cooks a couple of steaks on the griddle. He has collard greens, seasoned with allspice and nutmeg, steaming on the stove and a couple of huge potatoes baking on the hot coals of a fire he's built outside. Kate is beyond impressed. Seems this city boy knows his way around rustic as well as any Scout leader, and so far he's only burned his hand twice.

"Smells great," enthuses Kate, inhaling deeply the delicious cooking smells filling the ground level of the cabin.

It's been a long time since much home cooking took place out here in the Beckett family's wilderness retreat, and it's making Kate nostalgic for childhood memories of her mom making dinner from scratch on this very same stove, while Kate perched at this self-same counter, on warm summers' nights just like this one.

"Not much longer now," promises Castle, snapping her out of her daydream. "Just the corn bread to finish warming in the oven and…we're done. You want to eat inside then maybe take the marshmallows out to sit by the campfire after dinner?" he suggests, with a wicked grin and a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Kate smiles a genuine, warm and grateful smile, though Castle doesn't know what's behind the softness in her eyes, other than his own good fortune to be here with this wonderful woman he's finding himself falling more deeply in love with by the second.

"Sounds good. I'll lay the table," she offers, hopping down off her stool. "Want more wine?" she asks Castle, dangling his near empty glass in front of him.

"You know me so well," he replies with a wink, setting Kate thinking.

* * *

Yes, I do know him pretty well, she muses to herself as she tops up both their glasses with the rich, red, Merlot Castle brought along for the trip. They're both still learning a lot about one another, have been for days as they've fought their way through the mess they'd created. Okay, mostly Kate had created. But they're using this time to fill in the blanks, not in the way most new couples learn about one another, since they already know a lot of the detail about each other's lives, families, preferences. No, they're filling in the gaps – both from time spent apart (summers, holidays, weekends off, her period of recuperation) along with all the things they didn't share when events transpired because they couldn't bring themselves to he honest at the time. Back when sharing felt like too much of an admission that they were maybe more than work colleagues or could have been viewed as an invitation to burrow in further.

As they went through one strange experience after another at work, they mostly chose to keep their thoughts to themselves, and that realization saddens Kate a little. She wonders how much better they would both have fared over the last four years if they'd admitted they had feelings for one another sooner, and had therefore been able to support one another properly.

She frowns as she carefully places cutlery on the worn oak dining table, remembering all the nights she practically staggered into her apartment exhausted and then crawled into bed alone, fighting demons through the dead hours of night, through restless, fraught, unsatisfying sleep. She wonders how Castle fared on those nights too, if he slept, if he had nightmares as vivid and disturbing as hers, if he wondered what she was doing, where she was and how she was…

* * *

Kate sucks in a startled breath, knocking over the tall wooden pepper grinder when Castle places his hand on her back to tell her the steaks are done and to take care she doesn't burn herself because the plates are hot.

"You okay?" he asks, eyes betraying his concern for her. "You look…a little pale," he remarks, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand.

Kate smiles wanly. "Good job you're feeding me red meat then," she offers, by way of deflection.

If Castle notices, he doesn't say anything specific in response. "Right, I'll just go fetch the baked potatoes from the fire," he tells her. "Can you get the corn bread from the oven? Here," he offers, handing her a dishtowel, which he has casually slung over his shoulder. "I've got the oven mitts," he grins, snapping the bright red pair of lobster claws right in front of her, just like her dad used to, until she grew out of her daddy's girl phase and began simply rolling her eyes at her father and walking away without even cracking a smile.

God, teenagers can be so cruel, she thinks, with a twinge of guilt and regret.

Her mom bought these novelty oven mitts on a family trip to Kennebunkport when Kate was about ten. They're old and well worn by now - a little burnt and holey around the tips - but since neither she nor her dad can bear to part with them, the lobster claws remain a fixture at the cabin by mutual, unspoken agreement. To see Castle using them tonight almost breaks her heart, because she so wishes that her mom were here to get to know him. She knows instinctively that her mom would love him too.

* * *

By the time Castle returns from the clearing in front of the cabin where the small camp fire is burning, Kate has moved passed her maudlin moment, and is in the process of unwrapping a stick of lightly salted butter to go with the corn bread. She's just lighting the candles on the table when Castle deposits a giant Reynolds' heavy-duty foil wrapped potato on each of their plates.

Kate laughs in surprise as the aluminum, dinosaur egg-sized pod skids to a halt beside her steak. "You sure these are these done?"

Castle gives her a look, like she just insulted his manhood. One hand migrates to his hip, while the other dangles a set of BBQ tongs and a large serrated fork. The novelty oven mitts add to the overall comic effect, robbing him of the culinary mastery she's sure he's aiming for. Instead of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares he's more Edward Scissorhands meets Red Lobster.

She has to bite the skin inside her cheek to keep her face straight.

"Stabbed them myself," Castle replies, with a flourish of the lethal looking fork. He finally takes off the lobster claws and sets them aside on the kitchen counter.

Kate smirks, still amused by his defensiveness when it comes to his cooking skills; which are undeniably excellent. "Oh! Well, if you stabbed them yourself," she sniggers, taking her seat at the dinner table.

_TBC..._

* * *

_*Note: Thank you to Stewart O'Nan for the title inspiration. I highly recommend his novel 'Last Night at the Lobster' if you haven't read it._


	34. Chapter 34 - Extraordinary

_A/N: Thank you to 'teelduo' for sending me a clip today from episode 2x12: 'A Rose For Everafter' when I asked a question about Castle's college attendance. You inspired some of this chapter's direction, as you'll see. Thanks to everyone else who answered my query too._

_For the purposes of this story, I've decided that Castle left college early, without completing his degree, finishing his debut novel 'In A Hail of Bullets' instead._

_We haven't had much insight into Castle and Beckett's behavior 'behind the scenes' after they got together on the show, and so this is the area I'm continuing to explore with this story. I want to look at how they grow together, trading secrets about their past, gaining new insights about one another as they open up and begin to share, learning how to communicate honestly now that they've been brave enough to admit that they love one another, despite failings on both sides._

_So, if you want zero to sixty in under three seconds, this story is probably not for you. Think of it as more hump-backed camel, built for endurance, than McLaren P1. But I will guarantee a scenic ride. ;)_

* * *

****Chapter 34: Extraordinary****

_Previously…_

_By the time Castle returns from the clearing in front of the cabin where the small camp fire is burning, Kate has moved passed her maudlin moment, and is in the process of unwrapping a stick of lightly salted butter to go with the corn bread. She's just lighting the candles on the table when Castle deposits a giant Reynolds' heavy-duty foil wrapped potato on each of their plates._

_Kate laughs in surprise as the aluminum, dinosaur egg-sized pod skids to a halt beside her steak. "You sure these are these done?"_

_Castle gives her a look, like she just insulted his manhood. One hand migrates to his hip, while the other dangles a set of BBQ tongs and a large serrated fork. The novelty oven mitts add to the overall comic effect, robbing him of the culinary mastery she's sure he's aiming for. Instead of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares he's more Edward Scissorhands meets Red Lobster._

_She has to bite the skin inside her cheek to keep her face straight._

_"Stabbed them myself," Castle replies, with a flourish of the lethal looking fork. He finally takes off the lobster claws and sets them aside on the kitchen counter._

_Kate smirks, still amused by his defensiveness when it comes to his cooking skills; which are undeniably excellent. "Oh! Well, if you stabbed them yourself," she sniggers, taking her seat at the dinner table._

* * *

"Kate, leave the washing-up," repeats Castle, gently prizing her hands off the dinner plates she's attempting to rinse in the sink. "_Please?_" he whines, like a kid desperate to go outside and play when he knows he should be finishing his homework.

Kate acquiesces, drying her sudsy hands on the red and white, checkered kitchen towel Castle holds out for her.

"Your coat, m'lady," he clowns, holding her jacket out for her to slip into. She duly rolls her eyes at his theatrics while secretly loving the attention and care he's lavishing on her.

Castle turns away to busy himself with the tray he's been arranging on the counter. The scuffed plastic tray bears an aluminum flask full of hot chocolate, two chipped mugs, a bag of marshmallows and a small bottle of dessert wine with two plastic wine glasses he has appropriated from a long-forgotten picnic set he discovered hiding at the back of a high kitchen cabinet. Even Kate was surprised by that one.

She watches him with amusement as she tugs the hood of her NYPD sweatshirt out from beneath the collar of her denim jacket. It might be summer, more or less, but nighttime temperatures have a habit of dropping quickly out by the lake on clear nights like this. So she's getting prepared for this little post-dinner picnic affair Castle's so enthusiastically rustling up for them.

He asked for blankets half and hour ago, and she gave him a waterproof groundsheet and a bundle of old checked wool camping blankets she's happy for him to lay out in the dirt by their campfire. She's pretty sure he snaffled a couple of throw pillows off the sofa too, thinking she wasn't paying attention while the hot chocolate bubbled on the stove and she darted back and forth between clearing the table and keeping an eye on the pot to prevent it from boiling over.

He has being incredibly sweet and thoughtful and romantic more or less since they left the city. Dinner was simple yet amazing, the wine has made them both mellow, and conversation is flowing easily for once, despite some of the difficult topics they've tackled while they've been out here alone.

* * *

"You all set?" asks Kate, watching as Castle dons a navy hoodie of his own over the white tee-shirt he already has on.

She's never seen the hoodie before, but it looks really good on him. The front is plain, the fabric faded from frequent washing, but the back bears the legend _'University of Life'_ in white, collegiate style lettering. It makes Kate laugh. So like Castle to stick two fingers up at tradition or authority when it doesn't fit with his notion of life.

"Little bitter there, Castle?" she smirks, trailing her fingers across his back where the rubberised lettering is printed.

"Bitter?"

"Mm. That you didn't graduate college?" she teases, tugging his hood up and pulling the drawstrings until his cheeks are adorably squashed.

"Ah," he laughs, fixing his hair once he wrestles the hood off. "Father's Day gift from Alexis," he clarifies, though he knows she's not completely wrong.

Alexis has asked him similar questions before - how he feels about not finishing college, would he do things differently if he had that time over. He hasn't exactly explained the real reason for leaving without graduating, since he doesn't want his daughter to think that running away is ever an option. He told her that he needed to focus on his writing and felt that he'd learned all he could in a classroom setting by then. The well-reported success of his first novel more or less made his point for him. But however sanitized his personal backstory, he knows that's not the whole truth.

"Oh," nods Kate, her cheeks coloring at her mistake.

He gives her a clever, smirk of a look, and then picks up the tray. "Anyway, I've done okay with my…minimal education."

"More than okay," murmurs Kate, following him to the door.

"And being self-taught has its merits. I'm glad I didn't waste years wracking up expensive college loans, sitting in dusty lecture halls listening to tenured blowhards expound on subjects I would never—"

"Woah! You _have_ got a chip on your shoulder," exclaims Kate, starting to laugh.

He shrugs, giving her a sheepish grin. "Maybe. Just a small one."

"And if Alexis told you she wanted to follow in your footsteps and take the self-taught route?"

Castle doesn't hesitate for a second to think about his answer. "I'd drag her off to freshman orientation myself."

Kate laughs, shaking her head at him. "So predictable, daddy Castle."

"Well," he shrugs, "what would you do in my place?"

"Hey, I'm already sold on the merits of a college education. Your daughter knows how I feel. _Not_ that your route wasn't equally valid," she hastens to add, before he can interrupt or challenge her. "But you have to concede that your success could not have been achieved without a good helping of innate talent. Talent no one could have taught you, no matter how many graduate programs you attended."

Castle gently deposits the tray onto the ground and then formally bows to Kate for her kind and generous words. "Hence," he says, pointing to the back of his hoodie, "my knowledge was largely gained at the University of Life."

* * *

The fire has settled down from its earlier blaze to a comfortable, well-controlled glow. The flames extend little more than a couple of feet, and the circular perimeter of rocks Castle has planted around the ashy embers, protect the bare ground, so that there is little chance of sparks igniting anything of note ensuring the fire won't spread. It's a warm and inviting scene, one only Castle could have dreamed up to add a spark, so to speak, to their first trip out here.

Kate drops to her knees on the spread of rugs and then settles against one of the large pillows Castle has indeed sneaked out of the cabin with him. "Nice touch," she grins, patting the red velvet cushion propped beneath her elbow.

"Only the best for _madame_," replies Castle, playing up the butler role he adopted inside, as he unscrews the lid of the flask and begins pouring Kate a mug of hot chocolate with theatrical aplomb.

"Marshmallow, m'lady?" he asks, holding up the bag.

"Three, if it pleases my lord," replies Kate, letting her smile grow wide when she sees Castle grin in delight at her reply.

He plops three fluffy, white, cloud shaped marshmallows into her mug and hands it over.

"Did you bring the skewers?" asks Kate, leaning over to inspect the contents of the tray.

Castle gives her a look, and then he picks up two long-handled metal skewers and hands one to her. "This ain't my first rodeo, darlin'," he chides, grinning even wider when Kate covers her face and laughs at his ridiculous southern accent.

"_What?_" he protests, tossing the bag of marshmallows into her lap.

"Just…I'd leave the acting to your mom," she tells him, looking down for a second before peeking back up at him through her lashes to give him a shy smile.

"Oh, you do, do you?" he teases, approaching on his knees with wiggling fingers outstretched, threatening to tickle her.

"Hot beverage," warns Kate, holding up her mug of chocolate to fend off his marauding fingers.

"I'll let that one slide," he agrees, backing down. "But only because you were so nice to me earlier."

Kate stretches out on her side, her face warmed by the vibrant orange, dancing flames. "Care to be more specific? Seems to me we've both been pretty nice to once another since we got here," she notes flirtatiously, hazarding a quick glance at Castle's face.

"The college thing," he clarifies, settling down next to her, so that their heads are close and their bodies lie curled around the fire in opposite directions. Seen from above, they almost form the shape of a heart.

"You have natural talent, Castle. Anyone can see that," Kate points out. "Well, anyone who spends any time with you can see that."

"You know, you'd make a great professor," he muses, surprising Kate, since she's never thought of herself in a teaching role before.

"You didn't like your college professors?" she asks, watching some unfathomable emotion flicker across his face, telling her there's more to this particular story. "Is that why you left?"

Castle takes a swig of his hot chocolate and comes away with a white mustache from the melted mallow coating his top lip. Kate doesn't tell him. She wants to hear what's on his mind first. Then she'll deal with the candy-sweetness on her partner's lips...personally.

She drags her gaze back up from his mouth to meet his eyes when he speaks again.

"Kyra," he replies, his voice dropping deeper, betraying his unhappiness at the memory her name stirs.

"She really did a number on you, leaving like that. Didn't she?" asks Kate, smoothing her fingers through Castle's hair.

The writer closes his eyes and leans into Kate's touch, allowing her to comfort him for a moment. He sighs. "Looks like we both lost out on the education front for different reasons."

"But if we hadn't taken those paths…" Kate tails off. She finds she can't actually say the words because their implication is unbearable.

"Then we may never have met," says Castle, grimly finishing the thought for her.

* * *

They drink in silence for a couple of minutes, watching the flames spark and dance as the fresh logs Castle placed on the fire begin to smoke and burn.

"Where would you be now…if your mom…? I mean, you said first female Chief Justice when I asked you once before. Is that still—?"

Castle watches Kate contemplate his hesitant question for a second or two as she quietly sips from her mug.

When she finally looks at him, her head tipped to one side, eyes soft, a blaze of fall-tinted color from the fire sparking in their intelligent depths, her beauty melts his heart. But her words, when she speaks, almost break it.

"I used to think I'd missed out…" she nods slowly, running a finger over the wool blanket between them, "not making it to law school. I believed that joining The Academy was…it was my duty. Not a duty to serve, the way most cops view the job when they start out. I mean my duty to my mom, to my family…to avenge her murder."

Castle caresses Kate's cheek with the tips of his fingers and then he drops his hand to cover hers on the rug.

"I was driven by a need to get justice. And if not for my mom, then I quickly figured at least I could find some justice for other families in the meantime. I got good at waiting," she admits, biting her lip. "I wasn't always so patient. Being a detective taught me to play the long game."

"Ah, all things come to those who wait?" quotes Castle*.

"They come, but often come too late," finishes Kate, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.

"Hey. Hey, we are _just_ getting started," promises Castle, tenderly tucking her hair behind her ear. "No such thing as too late."

Kate nods thoughtfully, acknowledging his point. "I hope you're right."

"People make mistakes, Kate. Eventually they slip up when they think no one is watching. They get greedy or they get sloppy. Over-confident too, after a while, when no one comes knocking at their door in the middle of the night. We've seen it a hundred times over."

"Yeah, well, either way…I'll be there, waiting for them. However long it takes," she finishes, with absolute determination, her jaw set.

* * *

By the time Castle has listened to Kate describe her transformation from grieving college kid to rookie cop to steely, experienced homicide detective he has a lump in his throat. Losing Kyra to England - his first serious girlfriend - was nothing compared to Kate's experience of education interruptus. Her personal tale of tragedy and self-sacrifice, of finding the strength to do the right thing in the face of such terrible, senseless loss; to graft and fight, to bide her time…it humbles him all over again.

"I was right all along," he says, without thinking.

"Mm?" murmurs Kate, draining her mug of the last of the hot chocolate.

"You are _extraordinary_ in every way."

_TBC..._

* * *

_*Note: The lines Castle and Beckett quote to one another are from a poem by Violet Fane (1843-1905) called 'Tout vient ß qui sait attendre'._

_'Ah, all things come to those who wait,'_  
_(I say these words to make me glad),_  
_But something answers soft and sad,_  
_'They come, but often come too late.'_


	35. Chapter 35 - Fluff

_A/N: Thank you for your excellent company on this journey._

* * *

**Chapter 35: Fluff**

_Previously…_

_By the time Castle has listened to Kate describe her transformation from grieving college kid to rookie cop to steely, experienced homicide detective he has a lump in his throat. Losing Kyra to England - his first serious girlfriend - was nothing compared to Kate's experience of education interruptus. Her personal tale of tragedy and self-sacrifice, of finding the strength to do the right thing in the face of such terrible, senseless loss; to graft and fight, to bide her time…it humbles him all over again._

_"I was right all along," he says, without thinking._

_"Mm?" murmurs Kate, draining her mug of the last of the hot chocolate._

_"You are extraordinary in every way."_

* * *

"Marshmallow?" asks Castle suddenly, feeling his cheeks grow warm, not just from the fire, but from the intense, predatory way Kate is suddenly studying his mouth.

"Don't mind if I do," she grins hungrily, leaning in to—

_Suck his face?_

"Kate?" he squeaks, as her fingers caress his jaw, his cheeks, finally curling around behind his ears to hold him still as she literally sucks his top lip into her mouth, swirls her tongue over its sweet, sticky coating and then lets it go with a wet pop and a pornographic purr of pleasure.

"_Mm_, Castle, these are good marshmallows," she hums, licking her own lips, chasing the lingering aftertaste of vanilla sugar. "Where'd you find them?" she asks, fighting a giggle when she catches his lust-glazed expression.

"Uh…uh…Dean and Deluca," he mumbles, patting the blanket around him, frantically looking for the bag.

They need more of these babies…_stat!_

"They're…they're gourmet," he adds, forcing Kate to bite the inside of her cheek as mirth threatens to bubble up from her chest.

This is Richard Castle - of course they're gourmet. Even out here in the dirt, in front of an old cabin in the woods, sitting on some dusty old blankets by a dying campfire, his marshmallows would have to be gourmet. Some things in life you can depend on.

And suddenly Kyra is long forgotten, her mother's murder put back in its box for now, their precarious coming together in a city of eight million souls, where one wrong turn in life could have deprived them of _this life_ they're embarking on together. All of these big issues are wiped out by the simple joy of having fun together, being silly, letting their guard down completely for once. Kate knows she's safe with this man, that he's seen the worst that she can be and yet he stayed, that he understands her weaknesses, her fears, (some of them at least) and that he loves her in spite of and sometimes because of these flaws. He's proud of her as she is of him. He's supported her for years in her career, and now it's her turn to learn how to be there to nurture and support him in his.

"These come in any other shape?" asks Kate, reaching into the bag and plucking out another couple of fluffy white clouds, the certainty of a future she's beginning to be capable of visualizing making her happy.

"Hmm?" mumbles Castle, while intently watching the rhythmic motion of Kate's jaw as she chews: the stretch of perfect skin over bone, the strength in her muscles and sensuality of the continuous motion.

"Marshmallows," prompts Kate, waving a cloud in front of him as if this is show-and-tell. "Do they make them in other shapes?"

"Oh," he nods, snapping out of his fugue state. "Yeah, hearts I think, and maybe stars. Oh…and I'm pretty sure I saw a bag of snowflakes, but…brrrr!" he fake-shivers, making Kate laugh.

"Next time, let's get hearts," she grins, giving him a wink as she pushes a cloud into Castle's mouth and then leans in to kiss him, hard.

They fall back onto the rug and somehow Kate rolls on top of him, using the element of surprise to steal half the marshmallow right out of his mouth with her hot and devious tongue.

Castle lies there stunned when Kate sits back up and dusts herself off, smiling contentedly as she swallows her prize, like she's congratulating herself on a job well done. When he finally struggles up to a sitting position beside her, Kate has a smirk on her face that tells him she knows exactly what she just did to him. His life will never be dull again.

* * *

"Skewer?" offers Castle, still dazed, but wanting to experience that again as soon as possible. Kate Beckett sucking food off his face is definitely one of the hottest things _ever!_ He needs to update his bucket list and broaden his imagination while he's at it. He could slap himself for being so…so _vanilla_ about his life goals.

Who needs the moon when he has this sensual, sultry goddess right here on earth?

"Pass me a cloud," mumbles Kate, having just popped her one remaining marshmallow into her mouth.

"Yes, ma'am," he readily agrees, sliding a perfect puff of sugary, white foam onto the prong of Kate's outheld skewer.

Castle does the same, and they sit shoulder-to-shoulder, with all their irons (and mallows) in the fire, so to speak.

"Toasty," murmurs Kate, leaning into him, giving him a playful nudge.

The heat of the fire has set their cheeks aglow and made their noses and foreheads shiny. Kate feels its warmth permeate every part of her, feels herself relax completely for the first time out here at the cabin since she was a kid.

In the past, when she was a teen, there was always some tension between Kate and her parents, once she felt she'd outgrown the rustic charms of a stay at the lake, arguing constantly to remain back in the city alone to be with her friends. What she wouldn't give for one of those family vacations right now…

Then, after her mom died, the issues between her and her dad grew barbed arms and legs, threatening to tear them apart anytime they spent more than a day or two up here alone. She blamed him for his alcoholism; saw it as both a weakness and a personal form of abandonment. As Kate shucked off her old, comfortable, college existence like a snake sheds its skin - toughening up to join the police and start down the dark path of revenge - her dad went the other way entirely. He folded in on himself, while little Katie grew in stature. He succumbed to every self-indulgent, delusional, excuse-making cell in his body, drowning his grief in booze, hiding from the world, and leaving his daughter, his only child, to cope with her grief alone. If there was ever a time in her life that Kate realized she was more like her mother…well, that was it.

* * *

"Hey, you okay?" asks Castle, catching the sad, distant look in her eyes as she stares into the cleansing heart of the fire.

She shakes her head to clear the cobwebs and forces a smile, dragging her gaze away from the hypnotizing dance of the flames to focus on her partner's kind, concerned face.

The sweet smell of burnt sugar mixed with the salty, baked ham aroma of wood smoke fills the air around them. If there were bears roaming nearby out in these woods, (and there are, she's just never seen one) Kate thinks there's a good chance they'd be drawn to the clearing by the heavenly smell of the fire alone.

"Just…memories," she shrugs, the words catching in her dry throat as she blows on her lightly charred marshmallow and then pops it into her mouth.

Castle nods, leaving her to talk or not, as he demolishes his own toasted marshmallow. He's not about to push. "How about a glass of that delicious Tokaji?" he offers instead, holding up the small, slender bottle of expensive Hungarian sweet wine and giving it a little enticing wiggle.

Kate smiles, snapping out of her melancholia. "You're spoiling me," she sighs, reaching past him to fetch the plastic glasses, while Castle enthusiastically unscrews (thank heavens for screw tops) the foil lid on the bottle with a sharp snap.

'_This is nothing. I'm just getting started,'_ he thinks, remembering all the times Kate Beckett has refused his offers of help, financial or otherwise, in the past. He's going to enjoy spoiling her from now on, every chance he gets.

"Can I say 'you're worth it' without sounding…_cheesy_?" he asks, pouring the slightly viscous, honey-sweet liquid into one glass and then the other.

"Castle, until you told me about Edgar, _oh_, and not forgetting _Alexander_, I thought cheesy _was _your middle name," grins Kate, starting to giggle when Castle draws in a sharp, shocked breath.

"To us," she toasts, handing him a glass before he can retaliate.

She stares into his eyes as if he is her whole world, cheesy or not, when she taps the rim of her small wine glass against his. The light from the fire catches the warm honeycomb tones of the Tokaji and sets it glowing like amber resin. She feels loose, relaxed, and incredibly peaceful.

* * *

"This is the happiest I've felt out here since I was a kid," Kate admits out of nowhere, wrapping one arm around her knees as she leans into Castle's side, her glass clasped in her other hand.

Her statement catches him off-guard for a second, so he simply slips his arm around her shoulders while he collects himself, trying to think of something to say that might match the magnitude of her confession and convey his gratitude at the same time. Being here with her is amazing in ways he never even anticipated.

He comes up short, so he goes with light to keep things easy.

"Hard to imagine having bad memories of a place as pretty as this," he replies, casting his gaze out beyond the clearing they're sitting in, to the trees and foliage on the edge of their vision, dancing with shadow and light as if in thrall to the fire.

"Believe me, even the prettiest of places can become a prison if…when you don't want to be there or you're with the wrong person or—"

"The Hamptons," interjects Castle, suddenly realizing he knows exactly what she's talking about because he's been there too – trapped inside a velvet-lined prison cell.

He smooths his hand over the back of Kate's head when she drops her chin onto her knees, looking for all the world as if she is huddling into a tight, protective ball. But he knows her better than that now.

"You've felt like that out there?" she asks in surprise. "But isn't it beautiful…peaceful out by the ocean?" she suggests, resting her cheek on top of her knee when she turns her head to look up at him.

"Yes, of course. It can be all those things," he admits, picking a small pinecone up off the bare ground beside the rug and pitching it into the fire. The pinecone snaps and crackles, before disappearing in a shower of bright yellow sparks. "But it's like you just said, if you're with the wrong person, even paradise can seem like prison."

"I…I don't—" she murmurs, frowning as she struggles to imagine Castle ever feeling that way. She always viewed his life as much more blessed, stable, happy and carefree than her own dark, twisty, tormented past.

"You're not the only one who's felt trapped in a…a nowhere relationship, Kate," he explains, tucking her into his side to avoid the confusion he can see in her eyes.

* * *

They both sip their wine and stare at the fire, quiet and contemplative for a moment or two, until Castle picks up the thread of the conversation again.

"Gina," he says quietly, almost too quietly for her to hear, so that she translates the sound more as a rumble through his body into hers, where her head now lies cushioned on his shoulder.

Kate sits up a little straighter, taking another sip of wine to fortify her for the rest of this conversation. Gina is still a bit of sore point for her, and though he briefly brought it up yesterday, they haven't come close bottoming it out. But then she started the ball rolling this time. Castle is just pushing it downhill.

"That summer. When you asked me to go with you and you ended up taking Gina instead?" she clarifies, watching his face.

"Yeah," nods Castle, looking deeply ashamed or unhappy. It's hard for Kate to tell which in the dark. "Big mistake," he mutters.

"We've both made them," concedes Kate, because it's a truth there's no working around, and since they seem to be airing their dirty linen...

"We started fighting before we even left the Precinct parking garage," admits Castle, transporting Kate right back to her humiliating performance in the bullpen that day, with the guys and Montgomery watching through the conference room window.

She had been on such a high, ready to take a chance with him…until Gina bounced into the frame that is, all bright, bubbly blondness, seeming so uncomplicated and light next to Kate, who was struggling to even find the words to accept his invitation.

So a little spark of interest and excitement flares in Kate's chest at the opportunity to finally hear Castle explain exactly what happened after they left together that day. Especially if it disabuses her of the rosy picture she painted in her head to torture and punish herself with those long weeks that he was gone…and never called.

_He left and never called._ Sounds frighteningly familiar, she realizes, with a shudder. He never called and then _she_ never called. Turnabout sure is fair play, she supposes. Only he was on vacation while she'd been shot. And then there's the small matter of _'I love you, Kate'_ to add into the mix. God they've been hideously complicated with one another over the last four years.

"Really? What were you fighting about?" she asks, trying to keep her tone neutral, despite the renewed flash of hope that maybe she got it wrong afterall.

Maybe she got it wrong, and that miserable summer never happened the way she imagined it – champagne at sunset, romantic strolls on the beach, skinny dipping in his pool, _sex_ in his huge, luxurious bed until noon. Yes, maybe she got it wrong and they fought, and then Gina was tossed out of Castle's car, left abandoned on the side of the LIE in that pretty pink Burberry raincoat to hitch a ride back to the city alone.

"Sorry," she says, shaking her head to clear it. "You said you fought about something?"

Castle turns to glance at her and when he leans down to kiss her temple, she feels the word _'You'_, being pressed into her skin by his whisper soft lips.

She pulls back to look at him. "_Me?_ You fought…about…_me?_"

Castle nods, a slight smile playing at his lips, since Kate's incredulity seems to amuse him.

"Gina— Well, let's just say she's kind of the jealous type and more perceptive than you might think. She claimed she could see that there was something going on between us when she came into the bullpen. That's why she was cozying up to me. To make sure you got the message."

"That…what? That I should back off? That you were with her?"

Castle jerks his head in a little sharp nod of disgust – at himself or Gina - Kate isn't sure. "Exactly."

"So...how long did you guys last out there?"

"She was gone within a couple of days. Alexis caught the Jitney, came out to keep me company while I wrote. I was too embarrassed to call…to—" He rubs his hands down over his face. "I didn't know how to come back, Kate. After leaving like that. In front of everyone. So I just hid out there and wrote."

Kate wonders about the fact that Castle and Gina appeared to still be together when he came back in the fall, when they caught him at the Santori crime scene. She even heard him break up with Gina on the phone a couple of months later. "But…after the summer…?"

Castle rubs his neck in discomfort, dropping his head down to stare at his glass for a few seconds. Then he shrugs, trying on an uneasy smile. "I was weak. _Lonely._ She came back out one weekend under the auspices of checking my work output. It wasn't much fun, Kate, if that's what you're thinking. When we go out there, you'll see the house is big enough to lose yourself in. I spent my days writing. She was mostly out on the beach or shopping in town. She left a few days after that. From then on we mostly spoke on the phone. We did better on the phone, until I came back to the city."

"What happened then?"

"I came back to work with you. Things with Gina limped on. Then there was that disastrous dinner at Le Cirque. She made a scene. Entirely my fault. We were lucky it didn't make more than Page 6."

"Oh," murmurs Kate, her eyebrows shooting up.

"I've been poor at making my desire clear. This isn't the first time. For a writer…my communication skills can suck. I tend to fall back on sarcasm when things get tricky. I know you've been on the wrong end of that a few times."

Kate shrugs one shoulder and leans in closer. "Cops turn to drink, cheating…even domestic violence when their relationships are failing. I'm sure you can see the irony in that."

"Trying to tell me something, Detective?" asks Castle, finally smirking because she's being kind enough to make this easier on him.

Kate gives him a look. "Yes, that you're not alone in struggling to express what you want."

"_Why?_ Why do people do that? To themselves? To each other?" bemoans Castle, downing the rest of his drink.

"What makes you think I'd know?" laughs Kate, shaking her head.

Castle tops up their glasses, smiles and turns to look at her. "Because you're the smartest person I know."

Kate raises her glass to him in thanks for the compliment, though she knows she as screwed up as the next person when it comes to love. Or she was. She plans on being a whole lot more straightforward from now on.

* * *

"Speaking candidly?" she asks, a few seconds later.

"Given the circumstances, that might be best."

"Fear," replies Kate. "Fear would be my guess."

"Fear of?"

"Are we talking generally or specifically here?"

"Up to you."

Kate takes a breath before plunging in, moving from general straight to specific. "Fear of losing what we had, as I said before. I wanted my partner by my side, even if that's all I ever got to be with you. Then, when I was out here after my shooting, it became fear of seeing you get caught in the crossfire of whatever was going on with my case. And maybe fear that I wasn't good enough. You have a family, Rick. Alexis has already seen too many women come and go from your life. And I'm guessing the aftermath for her dad wasn't always pretty either," she says, curling round on the blanket to face him.

Castle stares at her, his features a hard-to-read topography of moving light and shadow cast by the glow from the fire.

"Am I right?" presses Kate, ducking her head to meet his eyes.

"I tried. Every time I tried to keep it together, to keep things normal for Alexis' sake, to shield her—"

"Hey, you're only human, Castle. Break-ups are hard. Why should you be immune to that? What, because you have a kid you're not supposed to process loss like a normal adult? You're not supposed to feel bad, sad, lonely or used?"

"My choices, not hers. She shouldn't have to experience that before her time…ever."

"Castle, children learn how to react to major events in their lives by watching the adults around them. If you'd been 100% fine after Gina left what kind of message is that sending Alexis? You were married. Divorce _should_ hurt or people would fall in and out of each other's lives without even trying to fix things."

Castle nods. "I guess."

"Anyway, Alexis is one of the most well-adjusted teenagers I've ever met. You haven't damaged her. She's so…so _sensible._ You did more than okay," smiles Kate, bumping his shoulder with her own.

"Told you you're the wisest person I know," replies Castle, sounding just a little smug.

"Then if you also know what's good for you, you'll shut up and kiss me," she demands, before tenderly taking his face in her hands.

_TBC..._


	36. Chapter 36 - Push You Pull Me

_A/N: Thank you for your lovely messages. I'm continuing to post pics to illustrate each chapter on Twitter if you're interested._

* * *

**Chapter 36: Push You Pull Me**

_Previously…_

_Castle stares at her, his features a hard-to-read topography of moving light and shadow cast by the glow from the fire._

_"Am I right?" presses Kate, ducking her head to meet his eyes._

_"I tried. Every time I tried to keep it together, to keep things normal for Alexis' sake, to shield her—"_

_"Hey, you're only human, Castle. Break-ups are hard. Why should you be immune to that? What, because you have a kid you're not supposed to process loss like a normal adult? You're not supposed to feel bad, sad, lonely or used?"_

_"My choices, not hers. She shouldn't have to experience that before her time…ever."_

_"Castle, children learn how to react to major events in their lives by watching the adults around them. If you'd been 100% fine after Gina left what kind of message is that sending Alexis? You were married. Divorce should hurt or people would fall in and out of each other's lives without even trying to fix things."_

_Castle nods. "I guess."_

_"Anyway, Alexis is one of the most well-adjusted teenagers I've ever met. You haven't damaged her. She's so…so sensible. You did more than okay," smiles Kate, bumping his shoulder with her own._

_"Told you you're the wisest person I know," replies Castle, sounding just a little smug._

_"Then if you also know what's good for you, you'll shut up and kiss me," she demands, before tenderly taking his face in her hands._

* * *

_A few moments later..._

Castle rolls onto his back and then stands suddenly. He holds out his hands to Kate. "Come on. Let's take a walk."

"A _walk?_"

"Yeah, come on. It'll be fun."

"Fun?" she repeats, crossing her arms over her chest.

Kissing him on this rug by an open fire was fun. She wasn't ready for that to stop yet. But apparently Castle has other ideas.

"Okay, romantic. I meant to say romantic. Come on? Just…work with me," he says, wiggling his fingers in front of her again to get her to stand with his help.

"A walk. _In the dark_?"

"Not scared, are you, detective?"

"_No_," replies Kate, indignantly, finally clasping his outstretched hands and allowing him to pull her up off the ground.

Once upright, Kate arches her spine and rubs her butt, which is a little numb after sitting curled up for so long on the hard surface of the earth, protected by just the thin consolation of a wool blanket and groundsheet.

"Anyway, I'll bet you know your way around here blindfolded," guesses Castle, looking right and left himself, trying to determine a route for this romantic walk he's suddenly had the notion to take.

"Is that a suggestion?" grins Kate, covering her eyes with her hand. "A little…_kinky_, don't you think," she teases, seductively arching both eyebrows at once.

Castle gives her a surprised look. "You—you really want to…uh—?"

Kate laughs, shaking her head. "Not this time. But…I might have taken one or two nighttime strolls…last summer," she admits, dusting powdered sugar off the front of her jeans.

"_Alone?_" Castle's eyes bug out in horror and a cold chill creeps over his skin.

"Castle, I'm a big girl," replies Kate, dismissing his concern with mild amusement.

"I..I know. But—" He stands in front of her, fiddling with the pull-tab on his jacket's zipper. He needs to say this, but he knows she just might kill him for thinking this way.

Kate puts her hands on her hips, which is never a good sign. "But?" she asks, flaring one hip out. Uh-oh. "What's your problem with—?"

Now or never, Rick.

"With you walking alone in the woods in the dead of night? Oh, I don't know," he says nonchalantly enough, before rounding on her. "Anyone could have been out here, Kate. You were injured…recovering."

The possibilities begin to swamp him the harder he tries to get a grip and shut his mouth. Words just keep pouring out as his over-active imagination gets the better of him. Cold sweat beads on his back beneath his t-shirt, despite all the evidence he's witnessed since they got here: that the cabin and the lake and the woods that surround them seem quiet, peaceful and harmless.

"I felt perfectly safe," assures Kate, turning towards the path they'd taken earlier.

"You were on pain meds," argues Castle, worrying the subject like a dog with a bone. "You sure you were even up to making that judgment call?"

Kate stops, whirling round to face him. "Are we really arguing about this _now_?"

Castle deflates a little in the face of Kate's worried, questioning stare. He knows that it's his own fear of loss – the loss of what they have now - and not the actuality of the situation back then that's coloring his thinking

"You're not doing that again," he mutters sullenly, brushing past her to take the worn path out towards the lake, foolishly choosing to ignore everything he's learned about this fiercely independent woman over the last fours year.

* * *

Kate catches up with him within a few strides and slips her hand into his, tugging it into her side until their joined hands bump rhythmically against the firm flesh of her thigh as they take high steps through the undergrowth together.

It's a surprise, but it helps: this simple gesture - her hand in his. It helps he supposes because little tokens like these are still new to both of them; so new that they're like an unexpected gift. The kind of gift that is simple and inexpensive but undeniably well thought-out. A gift made for the recipient and the recipient alone. The kind of gift that demonstrates intimate knowledge of the person on the receiving end, that indicates care, thought, and love.

"I wasn't planning on it," she murmurs, a handful of moments later, when the sound of gently lapping waves greets their ears.

"In fact, you're not doing anything alone ever again," he adds petulantly, as if he hadn't even heard her offer what, for her, amounts to total acquiescence.

Kate laughs. She can't hold the sound in any longer and it echoes hollowly in the dark, bouncing off the wide expanse of water and then ricocheting back against the hard, sounding board of the tree line. She tugs on Castle's hand when they reach the start of the dock, forcing him to a stop. "Do you know how ridiculous you sound?"

Castle glares at her, his chest heaving, though they've barely had to exert themselves cutting through the woods to reach the lake. "Your point?" he growls, though the look in his eyes betrays the fearful frenzy he's just whipped himself into.

Kate shrinks back from a full on burst of anger when she reads the reason for the fear in Castle's eyes. This is still so new - this amazing thing between them. And their visit to the cabin is throwing up all sorts of remembrances, confessions, and posing questions neither of them would have thought to even ask before today.

She lets her shoulder drop, a smile of contrition and amusement playing round her eyes. "True. Since ridiculous is pretty much your default setting," she teases, attempting to deflate his anger, to get him to put things back into perspective.

* * *

One minute Castle feels flush with love and the next he's fighting back every terrible fear he has ever imagined coming to find Kate Beckett. These feelings are heightened because of where they are with one another now. He understands this on an intellectual level, but on an emotional one…he's struggling. He doesn't know if he should be doing this now – engaging Kate in this push and pull. Maybe he should let everything go and just concentrate on being out here alone with her, learning all the good stuff, instead of dredging up the darkest worries that lurk in deepest corners of his mind.

On the other hand, he let stuff go for far too long, and look where that got them. They can fight their way through to some kind of negotiated agreement, he's sure, because that's what people do when they're in a relationship. Isn't it?"

Kate pulls ahead of him, walking out on to the old wooden boat dock, her boots making a dull, hollow, thudding sound the further out she goes on the planked surface. He watches her back as she goes - strong, upright, powerful. It hurts him so much to think of any harm ever coming to her.

* * *

"747" Kate murmurs to herself once she reaches the final board, tapping the toe of her boot on top of the carved heart encircling their initials as if it were a talisman. She wraps her arms protectively around her body when the breeze scuds past, whipping at her hair, just as she used to when she came out here alone.

Unlike before, when she would stand out here by herself in the dark listening for the sound of fish jumping, breaking the surface out of her range of sight, when she would allow her eyes to grow so accustomed to the dark she felt as if she was wearing night vision goggles on evenings when the moon shone brightly. Unlike before, she feels Castle's arms slip around her when he approaches from behind. She hears him settle his feet either side of hers, his stance wide enough to accommodate her hips in the cradle of his own, and when she feels his lips press a gentle, meaning-filled kiss to her temple, she finally relaxes back against his chest, clutching at his forearm one handed.

"Kate Beckett, please listen to me for once," he whispers, his lips resting on the shell of her ear, the vibration making her shiver and the hair on her arms stand on end beneath her hoodie.

"I listen to you a lo—" she begins to protest, turning her head to try and look at him.

But Castle holds her firm, forcing her to relax in his embrace. "Shhhh. Please?" he pleads, rubbing his nose in her hair, before settling his head next to hers.

Kate nods, silently miming locking her lips and throwing away the key.

"I love you…more than…more than _anything_, Kate," he says, this deeply serious tone one she has only heard him use a handful of times in the past.

"And I love you too," she reassures him, turning to holding his face in her hands as she reaches up to kiss his lips, to soothe his worry away.

"No. No, listen," he beseeches, his rising voice cutting through the quiet of the night as he grasps her wrists and eases her hands off his cheeks.

This time he is the one holding her still. His hands land on her shoulders, his nose slides over and past hers until his forehead comes to rest against her brow and her vision goes foggy. Castle whispers, his breath warm and sweet on her cheek. "I don't want us to be apart. I know that sounds…heavy or…or melodramatic maybe. But it's how I feel, Kate."

"What's this really about, Castle?" she asks, easing back a little to enable her to look at him properly, to read his thoughts in his eyes, like she got so used to doing when they refused to be this open with one another.

He looks off to the side, out into the darkness, evading her question. That he can plead with her to listen to him, beseech her so openly and yet not be able to explain what is at the heart of his request strikes Kate as odd.

"Forget I said anything," he suddenly replies, moving away, dropping to sit on the end of the dock, his feet dangling a foot or so above the impenetrable blackness of the water.

* * *

After a couple of seconds pause, Kate sinks down to sit beside him. She balances her hand on his shoulder as she crouches, choosing to sit close enough once she's settled on the dock that their thighs are touching, their shoulders and arms aligned; unlike the sun and moon they have ceased to merely orbit one another. They stare out into the darkness, both lost in loud, loud thinking.

"Funny. I never thought I'd feel the same…but after everything," she shrugs, keeping her eyes trained ahead of her, allowing her words to be the only thing her audience of one hears. This is no time for physical distraction. That would be too easy. Castle has an issue, some deep-seated fear, and if he's bringing it up now, when they've been having so much fun, then Kate knows it requires serious addressing to nip it in the bud.

She feels him shift beside her, and then she knows he's going to speak.

"Feel the same?" he repeats, flatly, looking for clarification.

"Mm," she hums, nodding her head, eyes still focused on the dark expanse of the lake. "I'm not exactly the…the clingy type," she admits, knowing she's not exactly breaking news to her partner here, but the difference in how she feels now as opposed to then needs a point of contrast, and this is one he has long experienced – her determined, stubborn need for independence.

When she doesn't say anything else, Castle's in-built sense of curiosity has been stirred enough that he asks, "I get the sense now might be a good time to say _but_?"

Good boy, she thinks, smiling to herself.

Kate nods. "_But_…being out here with you— You make me feel things, Castle."

He turns to look at her, the question written on his face. "What kind of things?"

"All sorts. Things I used to think made me weak. Feelings I…feelings I've tried to bury because they made me scared…vulnerable."

"I don't understand."

"If you care for nothing, there's nothing anyone can take from you. I learned that a long time ago. Same applies to people."

Castle suddenly finds himself thinking back to when Kate's apartment was blown up and she lost almost everything she owned. He thought her reaction at the time was perhaps a little odd, but chose to think of her as stalwart, courageous, especially since the FBI was involved and she still had a job to do. He reasoned that she wouldn't want to lose face in front of the Feds, crying over some lost possessions. But he still couldn't believe her ability to compartmentalize and move on, with little more than her father's missing watch to concern her. Alexis…god, even _he_ would have freaked out completely if he'd lost so much as his laser tag gear in a blast like that, let alone his entire home and all his worldly goods.

* * *

"This is probably the place I miss her most."

Kate's heartfelt admission breaks the silence and breaches the darkness surrounding them, snapping Castle back to the present.

"She was so different out here, Castle. Less…less _lawyer_ and more mom, I guess. I can still see her standing at the sink in the kitchen washing dishes or sitting out on the porch with my dad at sundown, drinking a gin and tonic and kissing him when she thought I wasn't watching."

Castle chokes a laugh of surprise at that. He and Kate have that to look forward to with Alexis when they get back to the city. Then it dawns on him – they're going back to the city in a couple of days and they'll still be like this. This trip out to the cabin isn't some one-off, special timeout, and then everything goes back to how it was before. This is them. Now. Forever, hopefully.

"Being back here kind of underlines how fragile life can be. One fall break we came out here as a family and my mom was with us just like normal. By the following spring I was calling a neighbor to make sure my dad got home safe from a local bar, feeding him Aspirin and a pint of water at midnight before he could pass out on the couch, and then mopping up vomit when he didn't quite make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night."

"I'm so sorry, Kate," Castle says uncomfortably. "That must have been awful."

Kate waves away his apology as if it doesn't affect her anymore. He knows that it does, she just has more immediate things on her mind.

"I don't want us curtailing each other's lives. You know well enough where my job can take me at times. We both have to find a way to live with that. Not getting busted by Gates so you can keep being my partner is a start. But, Castle, I just want you to know that I hear what you're saying. I promise I won't take unnecessary risks. And…and I don't want us to waste another minute. Okay?"

She dumbfounds him, regularly. He's just realized that that isn't going to change now they're sleeping together. So he just nods and reaches for her hand, giving it a squeeze.

"Your hands are sticky," frowns Kate, lifting their joined fingers to inspect them.

"Marshmallow. If you're good I'll let you lick them," Castle fires back, forcing a surprised bark of laughter from Kate and an amused chuckle from his own chest that echoes out across the water.

The tension between them eases instantly.

"I don't want to control you, Kate," he promises, his voice barely above a whisper. "I just couldn't stand it if anything ever happened to you."

"Then let's take care of each other. Make sure it doesn't," she suggests, squeezing his sticky hand in return.

And though her offer is genuine, it is tempered by the knowledge that sometimes good intentions are nowhere near powerful enough to ensure that bad things don't happen to good people. There is nothing her dad could have done, bar being by her mom's side twenty-four seven, armed to the hilt, to save her the night she was slain. Kate just hopes that she and Castle have the edge in this respect. Their job might inherently be more dangerous, but she _is_ armed, and they have each other's back, and therefore they _will_ be ready in ways that her mother never was and never should have been, when the darkness comes to find them, as surely it will.

* * *

"_So_, what about this romantic stroll you promised me?" teases Kate, bumping him with her shoulder.

"Mm. Not exactly as billed," apologizes Castle, giving her a gentle nudge in return.

"Take me back to the cabin the long way round," she suggests, scrambling to her feet.

"The long way?" repeats Castle, sounding pretty dubious.

"Mm-hmm," nods Kate, grabbing his hand and running off down the dock at such a pace that Castle has to sprint to keep up with her.

She lets go his hand when they reach an ancient looking, shingle-sided boathouse a little further down the shoreline. They're both panting for breath after running on the shifting surface of tiny pebbles and washed up flotsam that rings the entire circumference of the lake.

"This is definitely the long way round," says Castle, one hand pressed to his heaving chest.

Kate nods cheekily, her eyes sparkling. "A romantic detour," she says, tugging on his hand until they're standing right next to the wooden structure.

"To a damp, old boathouse?"

"To my _den!_" exclaims Kate, fishing her cell phone out of her pocket to use as a flashlight.

The roof of the boathouse is covered with moss, which gleams a rich, damp emerald under the phone's invasive beam of light. The long walls seem to lean out a little, as if weighed down by the weight of nature pressing in from above.

An owl hoots close by and Castle startles. Kate reaches for his arm and they freeze just in time to hear the whoosh of air as it passes close to them, catching just a flash of white when it glides out over the water before turning back and soaring upwards into the tall, dark pines on the hill behind. Soundless and magnificent.

* * *

"Had enough excitement for one night?" asks Kate, when she catches Castle's tired looking face in the glow of her phone as he struggles to defeat a huge yawn.

"Can we come back and explore your den tomorrow? In daylight?" he adds, earning a chuckle from Kate.

"Sure," she replies, jerking her head in the direction of the cabin.

Castle follows her sure-footed path through the woods, confident in her knowledge of the uneven terrain.

"Come on," she says, turning to hold out her hand. "Fire should be almost out by now, but we should really make sure before we turn in."

Turn in. Castle likes the sound of that. Going to bed for the night with Kate Beckett in her family's old cabin would have been nothing short of a dream a week ago. Now that he's here, he can't quite believe how lucky he feels.

_TBC..._

* * *

_Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Ha! Hope I surprised you, K. ;)_


	37. Chapter 37 - Boundaries

**Chapter 37: Boundaries**

_Previously…_

_"Had enough excitement for one night?" asks Kate, when she catches Castle's tired looking face in the glow of her phone as he struggles to defeat a huge yawn._

_"Can we come back and explore your den tomorrow? In daylight?" he adds, earning a chuckle from Kate._

_"Sure," she replies, jerking her head in the direction of the cabin._

_Castle follows her sure-footed path through the woods, confident in her knowledge of the uneven terrain._

_"Come on," she says, turning to hold out her hand. "Fire should be almost out by now, but we should really make sure before we turn in."_

_Turn in. Castle likes the sound of that. Going to bed for the night with Kate Beckett in her family's old cabin would have been nothing short of a dream a week ago. Now that he's here, he can't quite believe how lucky he feels._

* * *

When they get back to the cabin, Castle douses the fire with a bucket of water, standing back to watch the smoke and steam rise up into the cool night air with a quiet smile of satisfaction. He built it up and he gets to snuff it out, he thinks, quite pleased with himself, as he dangles the old zinc milk pail from his right hand, the other tucked casually into his pocket. There's a perfect symmetry in that and Richard Castle likes symmetry: the evenhandedness of it all, the sense of fairness, of justice and a job well done.

God he loves it out here: rustic splendor all around, the proximity to nature that he really only gets to experience these days when out roaming the shoreline in the Hamptons. But even then his view and experience is framed within the luxury of a near private beach, the sand regularly groomed by a local man called Sam who rides a large John Deere, combing the surface to perfection, picking up any stray litter with his teenage son, Blake, at his heels, so the local residents will pay for their beach parking permits without complaint, and the tourists and seasonal renters will keep turning out in their droves, tipping more and more tax dollars into Suffolk County's coffers.

No, out here is nature at its best, its rawest, and tonight he couldn't be happier about that, as he stares up at the stars and listens to an army of frogs call out, an amphibian choir, seemingly of one singular, throaty voice.

Kate, meanwhile, is in the kitchen washing up their dinner dishes. The domesticity of these two scenes has a strange feeling to it, since these are not tasks they're used to performing in each other's company. But they've always made a good team, even back when Castle did all he could to get a rise out of Kate and she pretended not to like him. So this is just an extension to their repertoire, not to mention the speediest way to get up to bed if they both attack different jobs at the same time.

* * *

"Nearly done?" asks Castle, dumping his bucket on the porch, before coming over to stand behind Kate as she rinses suds off the last of the cutlery.

He places his hands on her hips and rests his chin on her shoulder, nudging her hair aside with his nose so that he can kiss her neck.

"I'll be done a lot quicker if you—oh, shit, _Cassel_," she slurs, jabbing him in the stomach with one of her elbows while gripping the edge of the counter with her other hand, "stop distracting me."

"Where would be the fun in that?" he whispers, sliding his hands down her bare forearms to steal suds off her fingers as he slips his digits between her own.

"Did you lock…_Jesus_," she curses, when he sucks on her neck and then licks the damp patch he just created. "The door. Did you lock the door?" she pants, fingers latching onto his and squeezing without her even thinking about it.

"I thought these woods were safe," he mutters teasingly, flicking her earlobe with his tongue.

"I'm a cop. Someone breaks in at night when my door is left unlocked…I'd be pretty mortified explaining _that_ to the local Sheriff."

"Right. Good point, Detective," growls Castle, grinning against her neck while he swirls their sudsy fingers in the warm water.

"So…what are you waiting for?" asks Kate, twisting her head around to look at him.

Castle uses this as an opportunity to kiss her full on the mouth. Her grunt of disapproval is contradicted by the 180 degree pivot she makes to face him, wet hands slipping into his rear pant's pockets to cup his ass and drag him tight up against her.

"My—Beckett, my _butt_ is _wet_," he whines, when they pull apart to catch their breath, both grinning like fools.

"Then stop distracting me. If the fire is out, the table cleared and the front door locked…your work here is done, Lone Ranger. So how about you go on up and…and get comfortable," she whispers, leaning in for a quick, reassuring kiss. "I'll finish this and be up in a minute. I promise," she adds to encourage him.

Castle pauses, weighing his options. He's addicted to being around her, especially with her t-shirt damp down the front and a flash of black lace peaking through the wet, transparent patches. But then again, he could go upstairs and light some candles. He packed one in case the cabin was a candle free zone, only to discover the master bedroom peppered with fragrant nightlights. Another new factoid to add to his growing list of _'Things You'd Never Guess about Kate Beckett'_.

Kate arches one eyebrow at him before turning back to the rapidly cooling water in the washing-up bowl.

"It's not a difficult choice, Rick. Stop over-thinking it," she cajoles over her shoulder, turning to flick suds at him, amusement clear to hear in her voice.

Castle puts his hands up in surrender and starts to back away towards the stairs. "Okay. Going. I'm going. But don't stay down here too long."

Kate levels him with a stare; a stare that says he just uttered something veering close to insane. "You think I'm going to linger down here? _Hmm?_ In the kitchen? With my hands in _rapidly cooling_ _dishwater_? Really?"

"Well—"

"When I have a man in my bed. Upstairs. Waiting for me?"

"Okay, but when you put it like that I…I could be _any_ man," he points out.

"Rick," warns Kate, shaking her head at him, biting her lip to stop from laughing. "Have you been listening to anything I've said the last few days?"

"Yeah."

"Then scoot. Shoo. Go warm up the bed before my fingers start to prune."

Castle flashes her a crazy grin, before turning on his heel and sprinting up the old wooden staircase without any further delay.

* * *

When Kate finds Castle five minutes later, he's not in the master bedroom warming up the bed as she'd hoped and expected. No, he's standing in the middle of her childhood bedroom holding one of her father's sobriety chips in his hand.

When he hears her approach he spins around, looking at least a little guilty.

"Snooping through my stuff and…still touching things, I see," she murmurs quietly, lifting the bronze token out of his open palm and placing it carefully back on the nightstand where it apparently belongs.

Her expression immediately tells him she's not amused and her tone of voice backs that up if he were still in any doubt.

"I…I was just looking for some matches," he stammers, his face betraying the fact that he already knows he's in the wrong here.

"You know, I would have shown you my room in time. You didn't have to just wander in and help yourself."

His heart sinks. "Kate, I wasn't—"

She holds up a hand to silence him. "Castle, save it. I'm too tired to argue with you," she sighs, deflating almost immediately once these angry words are out there, swirling around the small bedroom.

He visibly shrinks in front of her. Disappointment fills the room with a dark pall that is almost tangible.

Castle looks down at the floor for a couple of seconds and then he seems to find a little courage from somewhere to look directly at her again. "You never talk about this stuff. About your dad, I mean." He's challenging her, but it's done so quietly, so gently, that she finds it hard to hate him for it.

"Ever think maybe there's a reason I don't talk about it? Like I'm trying to forget?" Her words have lost the bite of just a moment ago, though they are filled with enough pain to make him regret coming in here without her permission and basically forcing this discussion on her as a result.

She reaches past him again to pick up the sobriety chip, managing not to touch him even though the space is small. She turns it over in her hand when she speaks.

"Anyway, I talked about it tonight. Isn't that enough heartache for you? Or what? Not raw enough? Did I miss out some painful detail Nikki might need at some point in the future?"

Castle looks wounded and appalled. "Kate, that's not fair."

She stares at him until he looks as if he wishes the ground would just swallow him whole, and then she lets her stance soften just a fraction, lets her fingers uncurl from their tightfisted grip around the cool, metal token. She sags under the weight of the uncomfortable silence that crackles between them in the small, confining space of her single bedroom.

"You're right," she replies quietly, sinking down onto the single bed with the chip resting in her open palm, her features suddenly lined by exhaustion, the glow he left her with downstairs having deserted her.

Castle remains standing, swaying slightly, unsure what to do next. He's seen angry Kate before, when he used to get up in her business, knowing he really shouldn't. But this is different. He doesn't know how to deal with Kate who loves him, Kate who shares his bed and promises she wants to build a future with him, when he's obviously just disappointed and upset her so much.

They still have so much to learn, so many roads to navigate.

* * *

"This bronze chip represents one year sober," she begins to explain, stroking the raised surface with the tip of her index finger. "He gave it to me when we came out here to spend a rare weekend together. I…I confess I had no idea the anniversary was even coming up. I was living a day at a time back then, head down, barely getting through so... It just kind of snuck up on me."

Castle rubs the back of his neck in discomfort. "Kate, you really don't have to—"

She reaches out and snags his hand, tugging him closer. "Rick, would you just…please sit down? Please? You're making me nervous standing over me like that."

Her request surprises him. He capitulates immediately. "Uh…sure. Sure, of course I can do that," he mumbles, easing himself down to sit on the narrow bed beside her.

The mattress squeaks and the bedframe creaks in protest under their combined weight. These are the only sounds in the small room for what seems like the longest time, aside from their regular, quiet breathing.

"What do you want to know?" she asks at length, resting her hand on his leg before turning to look at him, the chip still carefully secreted in her other hand.

Castle finds his mind suddenly blank, seized by a kind of panic at being put on the spot over something so serious and painful as this period in her past. Her mother's murder lead directly to her father's drinking, as far as he is aware; cause and effect. Abandoned by both parents at the same time, it's almost unconscionable. He thinks about Alexis effectively losing her mother as an infant, and then imagines what it would have done to her had he disappeared at the same time. Even if she lost him now it would crush her spirit. It's at that moment he realizes how Kate must feel, finding him in here raking over her childhood memories as if her bedroom were some kind of museum exhibit.

He stands so hastily that he feels lightheaded, the blood supply to his brain not fast enough to keep up with his movements. White sparks dance in front of his eyes and he takes a moment to steady himself before he speaks.

"I had no place, Kate. No place even being in here, let alone asking you about any of that."

He turns to look down at her when she doesn't say anything.

"I'm so sorry. Can we just—?"

"_What?_ You want to forget it? Pretend like it never happened or…or act like it's okay we're still keeping things from each other?"

Castle is surprised by her change of heart, but he lets that go for now.

"Look, I can't imagine what you went through back then, Kate. But clearly you handled it, and you both survived. For me to pick at that scab is…it's unforgiveable."

Kate frowns, her face morphing into an expression of genuine puzzlement. "So, you're telling me that you're okay with us only sharing edited highlights of our past? We just pick and choose? _You?_ Mister Curiosity himself?"

"I want us to be open, to be honest…yes. And I'm happy to share any and all of my past with you, Kate. Feel free to ask me anything. I just don't think I should be forcing you to explain any of this when I don't need to know. Besides, you were so against it a few minutes ago. What's changed?"

"And you wanted to know everything a few minutes ago. I could ask you the same thing," she counters.

Castle shrugs. "My concern for you outweighs my need to know the story, I guess. _You?_"

"I'm terrified of keeping secrets," admits Kate, nodding to herself in realization. "It hurt us so badly in the past. I don't want to go there again, to _be_ that person anymore."

"Kate," Castle says softly, offering her his hands to help her up from the low bed so that she can stand, putting them back on the same level again. "I think we both have to work on our boundaries, on what's appropriate, on what's…_necessary_ to share. We have to figure out where to draw the line between what's in our heads and what needs to come out."

She listens to him, her head titled thoughtfully to one side.

"You can have an inner life, private thoughts. That's perfectly okay. I don't need to know everything," Castle assures her. "And I'm sure you don't want to know every crazy idea that pops into my head either."

Kate laughs unexpectedly. "Good point. Though I'm pretty sure you've been sharing most of them for the past four years," she adds, grinning at him.

She looks back down at her hand, opening out her fingers to expose the recently minted, antiqued bronze chip. It reads 'To Thine Own Self Be True' on one side. The Roman numeral one sits at its heart on a raised center. On the reverse the words of the Serenity Prayer are etched as a constant reminder to the recipient of their on-going struggle with addiction.

She reaches past Castle to place the chip back on her old nightstand and then she clasps his hand. "Ready to go to bed? We can warm it up together," she suggests, with a conciliatory smile.

* * *

Castle follows Kate out of the small bedroom, his fingers barely touching hers by the time they approach the foot of the big old bed in her parents' former room. Sparks of electricity leap off the tips of his fingers every time they brush or connect with Kate's warm skin. He tugs her back against his chest before they can go any further, letting go of her hand completely so that he can wrap his arms around her body from behind, holding her close.

"You do know I will _never_ use anything private between us in my novels?" he murmurs intently, nuzzling his nose in against her soft, fragrant neck.

Kate bites her lip and nods. She lightly bumps her head off Castle's where is rests alongside hers. "Yeah, I know," she says lightly, wrapping her arms around his and squeezing, so that he holds her even tighter.

"Good. I'm glad. Because that's important."

Kate nods again before allowing her head to drop back against her partner's shoulder in a tired gesture of surrender.

"We'll figure this out, Kate," he promises, kissing her hair. "Rome wasn't built in a day. But we'll get there."

She turns around so that they're facing one another and then she smiles up at him, her gaze trusting and open once more. "What did you want those matches for anyway?"

"Uh…candles," he admits, grinning sheepishly, arching his eyebrows at her in hopeful suggestion.

Kate chuckles quietly and shakes her head. "I must have found _the _most romantic man in the whole of New York," she notes, running her hands up over his well-defined chest.

Castle watches her quiet, determined worship of his body with something close to wonder, his heart beginning to pound in his chest as she toys with the collar of his shirt. "Is that a complaint? Beckett, is that a complaint?" he teases, tweaking her sides with tickling fingers until she squirms in his embrace and squeals with laughter.

Kate finally worms her way out of his grasp to hold him at arm's length. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes bright from laughing. "We will work this out," she promises, growing serious for a moment. "I'll get better at this…at sharing. Just give me time?" she asks, leaning in to brush her lips against his in a kiss full of reassurance, one that also asks for his forgiveness.

"I have no doubt," agrees Castle, slowly walking her backwards towards the bed.

_TBC..._

* * *

_Castle 5x03: Secret's Safe With Me (original script courtesy of Scriptline)_

_BECKETT: Who said that you could answer my phone? And why are you going through my drawers?_

CASTLE: I was just looking for a pad of paper.

BECKETT: Sure you were. Stay out of my stuff, Castle.

CASTLE: Your stuff? Need I remind you, I've already seen…your stuff.

BECKETT: Yeah, well, some of my stuff is still private.

_Our girl's got form in the privacy department, just sayin'. Hope you have a great weekend. Liv x_


	38. Chapter 38 - Tough Questions

**Chapter 38: Tough Questions**

_Previously…_

_Castle follows Kate out of the small bedroom, his fingers barely touching hers by the time they approach the foot of the big old bed in her parents' former room. Sparks of electricity leap off the tips of his fingers every time they brush or connect with Kate's warm skin. He tugs her back against his chest before they can go any further, letting go of her hand completely so that he can wrap his arms around her body from behind, holding her close._

_"You do know I will never use anything private between us in my novels?" he murmurs intently, nuzzling his nose in against her soft, fragrant neck._

_Kate bites her lip and nods. She lightly bumps her head off Castle's where is rests alongside hers. "Yeah, I know," she says lightly, wrapping her arms around his and squeezing, so that he holds her even tighter._

_"Good. I'm glad. Because that's important."_

_Kate nods again before allowing her head to drop back against her partner's shoulder in a tired gesture of surrender._

_"We'll figure this out, Kate," he promises, kissing her hair. "Rome wasn't built in a day. But we'll get there."_

_She turns around so that they're facing one another and then she smiles up at him, her gaze trusting and open once more. "What did you want those matches for anyway?"_

_"Uh…candles," he admits, grinning sheepishly, arching his eyebrows at her in hopeful suggestion._

_Kate chuckles quietly and shakes her head. "I must have found the most romantic man in the whole of New York," she notes, running her hands up over his well-defined chest._

_Castle watches her quiet, determined worship of his body with something close to wonder, his heart beginning to pound in his chest as she toys with the collar of his shirt. "Is that a complaint? Beckett, is that a complaint?" he teases, tweaking her sides with tickling fingers until she squirms in his embrace and squeals with laughter._

_Kate finally worms her way out of his grasp to hold him at arm's length. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes bright from laughing. "We will work this out," she promises, growing serious for a moment. "I'll get better at this…at sharing. Just give me time?" she asks, leaning in to brush her lips against his in a kiss full of reassurance, one that also asks for his forgiveness._

_"I have no doubt," agrees Castle, slowly walking her backwards towards the bed._

* * *

_Half an hour later..._

"_So…_"

Castle's conversation opener is quiet, but drawn out enough that Kate feels it rumbling through his chest as much as she hears it hovering in the warm air of the bedroom, despite being close to sleep as she lies on top of him.

He strokes her shoulder when he speaks again, fingertips brushing feather-soft over her skin and down her arm. "Did you sleep in here when— Or…or in your old room?"

Kate raises her head from his warm chest to look at him, letting her chin rest on her flattened hands. Her hair frames her flushed face in a halo of tight, damp curls. Several strands are pasted to her left temple where her skin is marked by a crisscross pattern of temporary creases. She looks younger by years with such a pink glow in her cheeks and a warm, bright light in her eyes.

"In here," she replies, looking around the room for a second, acutely remembering what it felt like to be here alone and grieving for the man laying beneath her during her self-imposed isolation. "Dad insisted. Why?"

Castle nods. His head is pillowed on his arms, biceps huge and exposed in the pale light coming in through the open windows. Veins cross the impressive mass of bunched muscle and a dusting of dark hair is exposed beneath each armpit; both features Kate only discovered in the last couple of days, discoveries she finds intensely masculine and erotically appealing.

Candles flicker all around the room, tiny votives glittering on almost every flat surface, throwing large, perpetually moving shadows up onto the exposed roof beams and milky white plaster.

"No reason. Just…trying to imagine."

Kate slips on a smile for him. She understands how much this plagues him: the not knowing, the missed opportunity to help, to be there for her as she struggled to rebuild herself on the back of a near-death experience. Coupled with his own period of miserable, desperate isolation, she's not surprised he still has a need to fill in the blanks with concrete detail and maybe improve on his own imagined version of that time with a little cold, hard truth.

Leaving him to believe that she was still with Josh all those weeks may have been her biggest mistake. Had their situations been reversed and Gina had still been in the picture to play nursemaid— Actually, scratch that, she thinks with an inner smile of satisfaction. Gina would never have played nursemaid to anyone, no matter how sick or close to death. It's just not her thing.

She forces her mind back onto issues that loom over their present, looking for a way to make two distant ends meet, hunting for inspiration. It doesn't take long to strike.

"Did you ever want to go back? In life, I mean? To correct a mistake, change a decision?" she asks him, biting her lip as she awaits his answer.

"We're not talking synonyms here or altering a plot in one of my books?" he guesses, reading the serious expression on Kate's face.

She shakes her head.

"Of course. Lots of times. But you just...can't," sighs Castle, reaching down to peel a lock of drying hair off her face and then curl it round behind her ear.

"I know," agrees Kate. "So, the best offer anyone can make under those circumstances is a wish to try. The knowledge that given the chance they would make different choices."

"I suppose. Yes," agrees Castle, after a moment's consideration.

"Well, that's me," she admits, giving him a tentative smile. "And I think the same goes for my dad too."

* * *

Castle's ears prick up at the mention of her dad. He's watched Kate do this in the past – she gets angry when he pushes to get access to her private life, vehemently insisting that it's none of his business. But the more time she has to calm down and think about something, the less under pressure from him she feels, the more quickly she comes round, eventually becoming willing, almost eager to explain or to share. It's as if they are both basically incapable of denying the other anything for very long – he: forgiveness, and she: a key to her life history, since that's what Castle always seems to crave the most.

"When he gave me that sobriety chip, I'd seen him a total of three times in the space of ten months. Once was at an older cousin's funeral with family all around. No chance to talk about anything. Which I was glad of," Kate adds, turning her head to the side to rest her ear against Castle's chest and listen to his heartbeat for a few seconds. "I was so angry with him."

"And the second time?" asks Castle, stroking his hand over her hair, massaging her scalp with his fingers.

"I caught a drug dealer. Twenty-three year old, mid-level player narcotics had been after for a while."

"Go, Beckett!" says Castle, clearly impressed.

"Actually, it was kind of a fluke. I busted the guy for an out-standing bench warrant. Nonappearance on a DUI. He ran a stop sign near a school and there I was. Anyway, they got their guy and I got a commendation. It made the papers and my dad showed up at the Precinct to congratulate me."

"Well, that was nice," offers Castle, hoping for a happy story.

"Mm," hums Kate, noncommittally, before adding, "Except for the part where I told the desk sergeant to send him away, pretend I was out on patrol."

"_Oh,_" nods Castle, remembering all the times he wished he could have hidden when Martha showed up unannounced at his school in one of her outlandish costumes, and the rest of the class would tease him mercilessly about his drama queen of a mother.

"Yeah. I left a half hour later thinking the coast would be clear."

Castle covers his eyes with his hand, already wincing. "_No._ Oh, no, tell me you didn't—"

Kate nods, her cheeks growing warm again at the memory of that hideously awkward moment, witnessed by a couple of her peers from squad and her training officer no less. "He was waiting for me out front. Rick, the look on his face," bemoans Kate, shaking her head. "I think that's the first time Royce realized how good a liar I could be. Guess I never looked back," she admits dryly, giving Castle a knowing look.

"Yeah, well, you're a reformed liar now by all accounts," he offers, tracing his thumb down the outside of her arm.

* * *

Kate is still lying draped on top of him, but suddenly that feels like too far away. He wants her next to him where he can hold her properly.

"Hey, how about you come up here beside me?" he asks, patting the pillow next to him.

"Am I too heavy for you?" challenges Kate, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she shifts her naked hips against Castle's, her breasts brushing against his sternum.

"_No,_" he replies, with exaggerated patience, knowing full well that she doesn't believe that's the case for a second. "I want you beside me, Detective. Is that too much to ask?"

Kate rolls off the writer and then crawls up the bed to lie down beside him. She squeals when he takes her by surprise, wrapping his arms and legs around her and rolling them both onto their sides so that they're spooning. Kate goes limp in his arms, little energy left and no desire to fight him anyway. Spooning with Richard Castle just soared close to the top of her _'Favorite Things To Do'_ list.

"Tell me about the third him you met your dad before he gave you that chip?" he whispers, once they're still again, his chin nestled in the slope of her shoulder.

"What do I get if I share?" she asks, surprising him with this lighter, more playful mood.

"What would you like?"

"Can I think about it?"

Castle grins against her skin and dips his head to press his lips to her bare shoulder. "Sure," he rasps, his voice a little gravelly. "Just let me know what you decide. The Ferrari is in the shop right now just…by the way."

"_Your car_?" asks Kate in surprise. "You think I want _your car_?" she laughs.

Castle frowns, looking puzzled by her reaction. "You don't? The boys usually—"

"Yes, _the boys_. I was thinking more along the lines of—"

Kate turns her head slightly to whisper her dirty suggestion into Castle's ear. Her lips brush the soft plumpness of his lobe and a shiver shoots through him.

His cheeks are warm when he replies, "I knew there was a reason I fell in love with _you_ instead of them."

Kate pinches the soft skin at his waist beneath the covers for that remark, but instead of fighting her off or squirming out of the way, he engulfs her with his own body, towering over her as she now lies flat on her back gazing up at him.

"You're so hot, you know that?" he murmurs, letting his eyes drift closed for a microsecond when she runs her foot up the back of his calf and he feels his body begin to respond to her caress.

He hasn't exactly been completely out of action the whole time they've been lying in bed recovering from their make-up session on the bearskin rug in front of the bedroom hearth. He's never been particularly slow to recover after sex, but the last couple of days have been insane; like some kind of miracle. It's as if being near Kate Beckett has extreme life giving properties akin to the swimming pool in the movie 'Cocoon'. He hardly gets soft at all when they're in bed together and sometimes just thinking about her… Well, he's going to have to be careful at the precinct from now on, that's for sure.

He pins her arms above her head, pressing soft kisses to the pale, vulnerable underside of each wrist in turn while she squirms beneath him, occasionally emitting little moans of delight which only turn him on more. When he switches his attention to her right wrist, he suddenly pauses, turning her arm gently to get a better look.

"What's this?" he asks, running the tip of his finger along a three-inch scar that follows the line of her radius.

Kate watches his progress as he traces the recently healed mark. She manages to swallow her ingrained urge to just yank her arm out of his grasp and tell him to mind his own business or simply get up out of bed and walk away; to hide from this.

But she isn't that person anymore, and Castle always deserved better from her anyway.

* * *

"Remember the sniper case? Few months back."

"_Yeaaah_." Castle's eyes flick up from admiring her slender wrist to lock with hers.

"You were…you were really good about not hovering. I was so grateful. But I know you noticed…something. That I was struggling."

"You got through," he says lightly, leaving it up to Kate if she wants to share more.

"Mm, thanks to Javi. And you."

"Hey, I didn't do anything."

"And that was exactly what I needed from you then. You've no idea how much you backing off helped."

"Sounds kinda weird. _'Thanks for not helping'_," parrots Castle, making air quotes with his fingers.

"Yeah, well…sometimes I just—"

Kate sits up in bed, tenting her knees beneath the covers. She picks at a white feather poking out of the quilt, pulling it out by the calamus before letting it float to the floor.

Castle eases up to a sitting position beside her, rearranging the pillows behind them. "What? Tell me," he asks gently.

"I needed space and you gave it to me without me having to ask. That's what makes everything I did last summer seem so…so _stupid._"

"What does that have to do with the scar on your arm? _Kate?_"

Kate shakes her head, shrugging off a painful flash of reminiscence. "Hmm? Oh, that. I…I was still in a pretty dark place. So a sniper… That was the last thing I needed. Well, until I worked out that hunting down Lee Travis was _exactly_ what I needed."

"But…I don't understand. How did you get the scar? You talked Travis down until they shot him at the scene."

"You knew I was drowning, Castle. You could a see it. PTSD in those circumstances? With a sniper on the loose? I wasn't coping…not remotely. There were panic attacks. I was…I was reacting to every loud noise, every flash of light. I felt completely out of control. One night in my apartment I started drinking."

Castle swallows loudly, his mouth suddenly dry. "_And?_" he presses, quietly, trying to keep his voice under control.

"Someone knocked on my door," she says, frowning, remembering, a little breathless. "I think. There was a noise anyway. It was confusing. I was startled…scared."

"Who was it? Did you answer?"

Kate shakes her head no. "I kept having these flashbacks. But they looked so _real._ I…I broke a bottle, slipped on some glass going for my gun."

"_Oh, Kate,_" commiserates Castle, kissing her forehead and then hugging her close.

"Castle, I felt hunted," she whispers against his neck, her voice breaking.

"And that's how you got this?" he asks, lifting her wrist again to inspect the long, thin scar.

"Mm-hmm," she hums, watching with tears clogging her throat as he presses tiny, tender kisses along the line of recently healed skin whose new pink color is already fading to a silvery white.

"Why didn't you—? Kate, you should have called me. I'd have dropped everything…been there for you."

Kate gives him a watery smile and then she nods. "I know you would have," she whispers, cupping his cheek with her hand, smoothing her thumb beneath his eye as she watches him, tears threatening behind her eyes.

"So…why?"

"I've never been a sharer, Castle. You know that. And if news of my PTSD had gotten out…I'd have been back to square one. No gun, no badge, weeks and weeks of therapy until I could be cleared for duty—"

She raises her eyes to look right at him when she adds, "And no you," grimly, after the briefest of pauses.

Castle puts his arm around her shoulder and tucks her into his side, resting her head against his temple. "Kate, I was only at the Precinct _for you_. Not the job, not for the guys, and though I'm ashamed to admit it, not even for the victims. I was there for you and you alone. Maybe in the beginning it was different, about more than that. About research and the books. But not after you came back. Not after that day at my book signing when you came to find me and we talked on the swings."

Kate nods several times, acknowledging what he's just said.

* * *

"Those flashbacks—"

Kate already knows what he's going to ask, so she offers the information without making him work for it. "My shooting, yes," she confirms. "Like a jerky slideshow…images would come and go. Dark images, a lot of noise. Like static only much louder. It was all in my head, I know. But it seemed so real at the time, so…_frightening._"

"Did you—? I mean could you see…? Was there any detail?"

Kate chews her lip. "Castle, let's not pretend we both don't already know that part of the reason I couldn't ask for your help was…I would have been caught in a lie."

"So…the cemetery. You saw flashes of that? Of being shot?"

This time Kate doesn't reply. She just nods to indicate that he's right on the money.

"And after. When you were on the ground?"

"All of it," she admits grimly. "The ambulance ride, the hospital corridor..."

"I could still have helped."

"I didn't deserve your help."

"I don't believe you set out to hurt me. You didn't get up one morning after you were shot and think, how can I cause Castle maximum pain?"

"No! Of course not."

"Then…I could have helped you, Kate."

She turns to look at him, her knees falling into his lap beneath the covers, his thighs warm against her own skin. "You're so good. So kind. I'm lucky to have found you," she says, palming his cheek.

"We're both lucky."

"And I promise, if anything like that ever happens again, I _will _call."

"Honestly?"

"Rick, you have my word. I need you. I'm not afraid to admit that anymore. It's like Dr. Burke says: asking for help is a sign of strength not a weakness."

"Smart man."

"Yeah," agrees Kate, settling in against him once more.

* * *

Something else had begun to trouble Castle after their earlier discussion and he decides that now is as good a time as any to ask.

"That night…" he begins tentatively.

"Mm?" hums Kate, snuggled into his side, her eyes drifting closed.

"At your apartment. When you were alone…drinking."

He feels her stiffen a little against him, but he needs to ask this. It's important.

"Do you ever worry…about addiction?"

"You mean am I like my dad?"

"There are theories," says Castle, hating every excruciating second of this, but pushing on anyway.

"Inherited addiction," nods Kate. "I know. Children of addicts are eight times more likely to develop an addiction of their own," she parrots, as if reading the statistic off from somewhere.

"I don't mean to be offensive or—"

"You're not. It's something I thought about too…in the beginning, back when we were both drowning in grief and were no use to each other. But my dad's drinking was situational. A…a reaction to loss."

"Did you…did Dr. Burke help you understand that?"

"It came up. But I'm not worried. My dad never drank much before. He…he reacted to a…to a trigger, used alcohol as a way to numb the pain."

"Makes sense." Castle's done the same thing on occasion, though not to any sustained extent, so he has enormous sympathy for her dad.

Kate shrugs. "I was lucky…chose to thrown myself into the job instead."

A job that came with an extreme price, thinks Castle, though he keeps this thought to himself.

"I just…sometimes I feel as if I failed him as much as he failed me. I used to imagine my mom looking down on us, shaking her head in disgust. One test, and instead of being a family and pulling together, we just _blew apart_."

"Kate, your mother was murdered," Castle reminds her gently. "That's a lot more than a test. A situation like that…some people never recover from that kind of loss. The fact that you're both still here says a lot. It says you pulled through in the end. You're both in pretty good shape considering. You should be proud of your dad."

She nods. "I am. He fought his demons on his own. He's where he is today because he put in the work. Still does."

"And so have you. Seeing you now…how far you've come. I'm _so_ proud of you, Kate. And your mom would be too," he assures her, pressing a compassionate kiss against her hair.

_TBC..._

* * *

_Note: A poignant chapter addressing some big issues that we've never heard these characters talk about. There will be more fun during their mini-vacation, I promise. :)_


	39. Chapter 39 - Morning Glory

_A/N: This chapter kind of snuck up on me. It was not what I was expecting to write. But if you look at the photo I posted to accompany this chapter on Twitter, you will see where the inspiration came from. _

_**WARNING: This chapter contains adult themes and language.**_

* * *

**Chapter 39: Morning Glory**

_Previously…_

_"Do you ever worry…about addiction?"_

_"You mean am I like my dad?"_

_"There are theories," says Castle, hating every excruciating second of this, but pushing on anyway._

_"Inherited addiction," nods Kate. "I know. Children of addicts are eight times more likely to develop an addiction of their own," she parrots, as if reading the statistic off from somewhere._

_"I don't mean to be offensive or—"_

_"You're not. It's something I thought about too…in the beginning, back when we were both drowning in grief and were no use to each other. But my dad's drinking was situational. A…a reaction to loss."_

_"Did you…did Dr. Burke help you understand that?"_

_"It came up. But I'm not worried. My dad never drank much before. He…he reacted to a…to a trigger, used alcohol as a way to numb the pain."_

_"Makes sense." Castle's done the same thing on occasion, though not to any sustained extent, so he has enormous sympathy for her dad._

_Kate shrugs. "I was lucky…chose to thrown myself into the job instead."_

_A job that came with an extreme price, thinks Castle, though he keeps this thought to himself._

_"I just…sometimes I feel as if I failed him as much as he failed me. I used to imagine my mom looking down on us, shaking her head in disgust. One test, and instead of being a family and pulling together, we just blew apart."_

_"Kate, your mother was murdered," Castle reminds her gently. "That's a lot more than a test. A situation like that…some people never recover from that kind of loss. The fact that you're both still here says a lot. It says you pulled through in the end. You're both in pretty good shape considering. You should be proud of your dad."_

_She nods. "I am. He fought his demons on his own. He's where he is today because he put in the work. Still does."_

_"And so have you. Seeing you now…how far you've come. I'm so proud of you, Kate. And your mom would be too," he assures her, pressing a compassionate kiss against her hair._

* * *

Next morning, Kate wakes a little after six, blinking. The sun is stretched out across the bedroom floor, mid-yawn, squares of bright light lying sprawled over the bare boards, warming the wood where it lounges.

When she turns her head, Castle's face is right there, next to hers on the pillow, their noses almost touching. He's sleeping soundly, the quiet whoosh of air every time he breathes out the only sound. They'd fallen asleep immediately after their deep and meaningful conversation about her PTSD, the scar on her arm and her dad's drinking. Maybe a game of strip poker is in order for tonight, she thinks. Keep today light, fun, while they enjoy the rest of their 'getting to know you better' break in Connecticut. Though she has to admit she is undeniably impressed by their newly discovered adroitness at being able to bounce from one serious subject to the next without falling out or even pausing for breath.

They've matured, grown together so quickly in less than a week. Their relationship is unrecognizable from the careful, stilted, frightened, subtext-heavy yearning of the past. If only she'd grasped this sooner – the freedom that would come from sharing herself with him – instead of the pain they caused one another while she determinedly held him at arm's length; dangling like a yo-yo on a knotted string.

A noise captures her attention, pulling her out of her head instantly. A long, deep inhale, accompanied by a languorous elongation of limbs and torso beneath the sheet that covers them both, alerts her to Castle's slow, steady rise to the surface.

She rolls onto her side, head propped up on one hand, eager to watch him float back to full awareness. He's surprisingly cute when he's asleep – face squashed, hair rumpled beyond repair, eyes a little puffed. She could quite contentedly watch him sleep for hours, if he ever stayed asleep long enough to do so. Based on the scant experience she has – just three nights spent together – they each seem to have a sixth sense for the wakefulness of the other. It's as if they cannot bear to waste another minute out of each other's company. It's sweet and she wasn't prepared to feel this way, given the amount of time they already spend together at work. If the boys ever find out about this, she knows she will _never_ live it down.

* * *

"Good morning, Sunshine," she whispers, trailing the tips of her fingers over his forehead, smoothing hair off his warm brow. "Sleep well?"

Castle grunts something unintelligible, but then he opens his eyes and _wow!_ Deep blue locks with hers, shining like you wouldn't believe. And the smile…

Kate smiles back: a crazy, beaming grin that mirrors her lover's like a reflection. She leans in to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm guessing that's a yes then."

"God this bed is sinfully good," he growls, stretching again. "Or was it all the fresh air we got yesterday? I must have passed out," he says, yawning again and then rolling over to begin hunting for his watch on the nightstand by his side of the bed. "What time is it?"

Kate yawns reflexively, flopping onto her back. "Just after six. And I'm pretty sure it's the fresh air. I always sleep better out here."

"We're on vacation," Castle whispers with equal measures of awe and excitement, smiling next to her ear.

And how did he get _there_ all of a sudden?

Kate can't stop grinning either. "Yes, we are. So, what do you want to do today?"

Castle pauses briefly to think, drumming his chin with the tips of his fingers. "Uh…how about we go out on the lake? A little skinny-dipping maybe? Take a picnic, lie in the sun? Then we could make an early dinner so we can eat outdoors, watch the sunset?"

Kate laughs at this flood of suggestions. "So…lazy day then?"

"Gotta make the most of the time we have left," he says, pouting as he rests his chin on her chest and stares up at her with puppy dog eyes.

Kate smiles at him, indulgently, carding her fingers through his hair. "Don't get maudlin on me. Not yet. We have a whole day and night left."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Now, where's my good morning kiss?"

"Eh," she pushes on his shoulder, toppling him onto his back. "Not until I brush my teeth."

"What about me?"

"You too, buster."

* * *

Kate has her legs over the side of the bed and is pulling Castle's discarded t-shirt on over her head before he can think of an argument to keep her in bed.

As she turns to face him, busy flicking her hair out of the neck of his white tee, which barely covers her ass, she discovers he's now sprawled across the mattress, lying on his stomach, facing her. Before she can open her mouth to say something, he has his arms wrapped around her thighs, holding her against the side of the bed. She gasps loudly when he nudges his nose beneath the wavy hem of the t-shirt, moaning salaciously when his lips connect with the fragrant warmth between her thighs.

"God, _Cass_—" she pants, her chest suddenly heaving, every labored breath making the shirt ride up even higher in front.

She stands stalk still, waiting for him to make a move, debating with herself whether to gently put him off until she can tidy herself up, but then he _blows_ on her and…_oh!_

"Sweet Jesus, _Rick,_" she gasps, spontaneously tilting her pelvis up towards him, her body definitely the one in control at this point.

He's still holding her firmly, one arm banded around behind her thighs, while the other has migrated to her hip, keeping her steady.

She hasn't showered yet, and they went at it a couple of times last night: first on the bearskin rug by the fire and the second time in bed about 2am when she woke up to find Castle's hand caressing her stomach, his erection hot and hard against her spine.

The thing is, Castle does not seem to mind her musky scent one iota, if anything it seems to be turning him on even more as he hums keenly against her, pressing kisses to the neat, manicured strip of hair down below.

When she feels his tongue flick out to taste her, her knees almost buckle.

"Oh, dear God," she curses, blindly reaching out a hand to steady herself. She connects with Castle's bare shoulder and hangs on.

* * *

A few seconds later, all concern about personal hygiene and last night's (s)exploits fly out the window when she finds herself edging her legs further apart so that he can gain even better access than he has secured already.

She hears Castle's hum of approval when he understands she's not trying to escape, merely widening her stance to let him in further. The vibrato of this change in tone races through her, teasing her core when the ripple of vibration from deep within her partner's chest spreads out across her pelvis like warm, molten honey.

Now that he knows she's getting into this, he changes tactic with his hand, sliding it up the back of one long thigh, slipping beneath his shirt to cup the bare cheek of her ass in his broad hand.

"You feel amazing," he says, grinning up at her as he curls his thumb and watches her eyes widen when he slips it between the twin mounds of her buttocks.

Kate has to fight to remain flat on her feet, when her instinct is to rise onto the balls, away from this sudden intimate intrusion. But Castle is an expert and she trusts him with her life. The things she's discovering he can do to her body go beyond simple talent; the man in a genius with this hands and his mouth. So she edges her feet even further apart, giving him more room to work.

He smiles at her, eyes a dark, lusty navy. "Good girl," he purrs, before ducking his head to get down to business.

"Oh, _Gawd!_" Kate groans, a minute or so later, as Castle's fingers, now shaped like an imaginary pistol, slide back and forth through the sticky slickness of her arousal, cocked thumb brushing a teasing tattoo against her swollen bundle of nerves with every fresh pass.

Kate begins to rock her hips forward and back in a counter direction to the movement of Castle's hand so that they glide back and forth over one another, generating the most heavenly, relentless friction. Her heart is hammering so hard beneath her ribs that she can hear her pulse pounding in her ears.

His other hand, meanwhile, is stroking the intimate crevice between the cheeks of her ass, and her head lolls back on her shoulders every few seconds as he skillfully works her closer and closer to the point of ecstasy.

* * *

Suddenly his fingers are withdrawn and Kate blinks a few times in surprise, as if coming round from a trance. But before she can look down to find out what the hell is going on or even make a sound of protest, she feels the warm, wet intrusion of Castle's surprisingly large tongue pushing into the swollen channel between her glistening pink lips.

"Oh, _fuck!_" she groans, letting out a long, shuddering breath. Her fingers grip his shoulder hard, nails digging into the tan flesh, but Castle doesn't flinch.

"Language, Beckett," she thinks she hears him mutter in amusement, though at this point he could be reciting her resume against her bare, overheating skin and she wouldn't understand a damn word he was saying.

"Oh, _my God_," she utters again, breathy as a porn actress, when he begins to lap rhythmically at the moisture pooling between her legs. "Oh! _Fuck!_ You…you—"

Castle briefly pauses when Kate cuts off, stuttering incoherently, both hands now clutching at his shoulders. But then she raises one leg up onto the bed, aching with need, teetering on the edge of a powerful orgasm they're both astute enough to recognize is just a few strokes away. Need that drives her to lose any remaining inhibition, as her knee presses into the mattress by his left arm, while her other leg remains more or less steady enough to hold her up, muscles only trembling slightly at this point, though if he keeps this up for much longer…

This bed is _the_ perfect height for these activities with her legs as long as they are, putting Castle's head right in the erogenous zone, Kate realizes. She quickly steers her brain away from remembering who actually put this bed in here; who built it with his own bare hands. She does _not_ need to think about Grandpa Joe and Nana Beckett in this bed. Nah-ah. Serious buzz kill.

But then Castle twists his tongue, performing some fancy swirl and suck maneuver on her, the roughness of his stubble heightening the phenomenon when he pushes in close and his chin hits her pubic bone sending sparks of sensation racing out across her abdomen. A shiver rips up her spine, tightening her nipples to sharp, puckered peaks beneath the soft cotton that still smells of him, and she immediately feels her self-control begin to unravel. Her chest is heaving, heart hammering forcefully against her ribs and she's pretty sure her face and chest are flushed pink, given the heat in the room and the temperature rising down below.

"Close," she whispers hoarsely, moving her right hand to grab hold of the bedframe in case her one remaining leg does give out.

The pounding rhythm of her partner's fingers, the fleshy rasp of his tongue over her nerves and the long continuous stroking going on behind her finally gets to be too much. She hears the rush of blood in her ears, and she cries out just as a wave of pulsating, winking contractions begin to seize her body. Her vision whites out for a couple of seconds and she's glad she grabbed the bedpost when she did because her thigh muscles are trembling as if they're coming too.

* * *

She grunts when she finally lifts her knee down off the bed a mere handful of seconds later, muscles stiff from being awkwardly stretched for so long, her whole body still alive and singing from his touch. When she falls forward beside Castle onto the bed, her face has the happy smile of someone drunk on love pasted all over it.

"You're so wicked," she chuckles, a breathy, high-pitched exhale of laughter following the words. "Wicked, wicked, wicked," she repeats, sounding giddy or high as she rolls over in bed so that she can look at him.

"You refused my good morning kiss, Detective," Castle explains good-naturedly.

"And _that_ was my punishment?" laughs Kate, delighted by this information.

"Wow!" she exclaims, when he just smiles enigmatically at her.

That he already knows her body so intimately has surprised her. Sure he followed her around for years, poked into every nook and cranny of her life that he could find a way to squeeze into when she wasn't looking, and even sometimes when she was. But that doesn't quite explain the instant carnal knowledge he possesses after just a handful of sexual encounters. Unless he's right, and fate or soul mates or some version of love at first sight is at play here, granting him an understanding of her that no other man has ever managed to gain before.

But then Richard Castle is bold: he takes, often without waiting for an invitation or even permission. And sometimes he seeks access even when permission has explicitly been denied. Not that he would ever force her, or any woman for that matter. He's not that kind of man and they are so far beyond being merely attracted to one another that even entertaining these thoughts is moot. Just, she's just never been with someone so willing to learn about her body without prompting, or been with someone who needed nothing in return from her but to see her own pleasure reach its peak; that is reward enough for him it seems.

Well, it will never be enough for her. He deserves more from her on all fronts – emotional, spiritual and physical.

* * *

"Here," she murmurs, beckoning him the last couple of inches it will take to close the distance between them.

"What?" grins Castle, eyes shining with an extra helping of love and fun as he tries to figure out what she's up to.

"Want the rest of my good morning kiss," she whispers, tugging on his ear as she covers his mouth with her own.

He tastes of her, his chin still damp with her juices, and she groans with pleasure when his tongue strokes past hers to brush the tender roof of her mouth, exploring her all over again.

When they part, she runs her fingers down his back, letting her forehead rest against his warm temple.

"You—" she begins, stopping when she hits an emotion-choked obstruction trying to craft the words she wants to say.

"Hey, what is it? You okay?" asks Castle, a frown of concern creasing his forehead when he sees her drop her eyes to the mattress, her lip trapped between her teeth.

Kate nods. "Mm. I—no one, and I mean _no one_," she stresses, gripping his wrist, "has ever gotten close to knowing me like you do. I know we messed this up for a long time, but there has never been anyone close to it for me. Not like you."

"I'm glad," replies Castle, placidly, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek.

Kate covers his hand where it rests on her jaw and stills him, forcing him to stop and listen. "No. You don't understand what I'm trying to say, Castle." She sounds slightly pleading, maybe even a little upset.

He frowns. "I don't?"

"No."

"Then go on. Tell me," he encourages, rubbing soothing circles on her back.

Kate drops her head, feeling how heavy it is on her neck when she's not supporting it. The weight eases when she opens her eyes and looks into Castle's patient face as he waits for her to explain.

"I…I've never been in love before. Never really knew what this kind of love was…felt like…even meant. Not until I met you."

Castle nods slowly and she watches his Adam's apple bob when he swallows, the import of her point hitting him square in the chest.

"I just…I need you to know how much you're giving me here, Rick."

She pauses, cheeks coloring when she hears her own words. She didn't mean _that_ kind of 'giving', so she quickly adds, "And this is not the sex talking, I swear."

Castle laughs, these last words unexpected following on behind the gravity of emotion she's trying to unravel, to offer him.

"Kate, you might not think it, but you've been giving me so much since the day I met you. Even when you couldn't show it or didn't trust me enough to let me in. You gave me back my inspiration to write. You gave me hope. You gave me the drive, the desire to be better than I was as a man, as a father…even as a friend. You gave my life purpose."

She bites her lip, watching him: always kind, always generous, so gentle and loving, and how the hell was there ever a time when she thought she didn't want this, that she was…_what?_ Better than him?

"I'm an idiot," she says, her tone amused, yet clearly self-depreciating.

Castle smiles, tucking her hair behind her ear so he can see the blush in her cheeks. "What makes you say that?"

"I kept you waiting."

"Some waits are worth it," he offers, with a simple shrug that belies all the pain, the humiliation, the frustration and heartache of wanting someone so badly, so obviously that the whole world knew even when you tried to hide it. He makes it look like it was nothing, all for her sake.

"I am _never_ going to make you wait for anything…_ever again_," she declares, almost nose-to-nose with him now.

They both break into silly grins at her expansive proclamation, feet and legs tangling on the far side of the bed.

"That so?" drawls Castle, his clever, childish, _dirty_ mind clearly whirring already.

"Mm-hmm," hums Kate, nodding. "I'll never make you wait _for_…" she pauses, thinking of an example. "For me to get ready to go out on a date."

"Good," murmurs Castle, pecking her on the nose. "Because I plan on taking you on _lots_ of dates. What else?"

"Body drops," she declares after a second's thought.

"But you don't—" Castle narrows his eyes at her, watching the guilty look appear on her face. "You make me _wait_ for those?" he whines. "Is that why you always get to the scene first?"

"I sometimes hold off...call you from the car," she admits, and Castle's eyes bug out. "Hey, it takes me longer to get ready. You'd beat me there every time if I didn't have a head start, and how would that look to Lanie and the boys?" she asks, laughing at the look of horrified indignation on his face.

"Well, I have two things to say about that. Firstly, I refer you back to your previous point about our dates. You'll just have to get ready faster," he grins, stealing a kiss from her open, surprised looking mouth.

"And the other thing?"

"Since we'll be waking up together…no longer a problem."

They lock eyes, and Castle holds his breath while Kate processes this slightly…okay, _wildly_ presumptuous remark.

It takes a beat or two, but then she nods as if accepting his point, and he knows it's going to be okay.

"Your place or mine?" she asks, and Castle collapses forward onto the bed, face down, with a whoosh of relief.

"Don't care, as long as we're both there," she hears him say, though his reply is muffled by the thick mattress topper.

When he looks up at her, his eyes are smoking with pure, erotic want. "I'm glad we cleared that up. _So_…you gonna make me wait right now?" he asks, cocking one eyebrow saucily before he leans in to kiss her.

Her moan of appreciation when his mouth covers hers, coupled with the slide of her hand between their naked bodies to grasp him firmly in her palm, tells him that the answer is a no.

Definitely no more waiting.

_TBC..._

* * *

_Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Liv_


	40. Chapter 40 - Messing About In Boats

_A/N: Apologies if you've been waiting around for an update to this story, but I did just squeeze in another 94,000 word fic in the interim called "Make It Out To Kate" in case you missed it. Since that story is now compete, we're back to finish this one, and then finally I'll round off "Coming Home for Good."_

_I've added a short re-cap of the last chapter to bring you back up to speed with the action._

* * *

**Chapter 40: Messing About In Boats**

_Previously…_

_"I sometimes hold off...call you from the car," she admits, and Castle's eyes bug out. "Hey, it takes me longer to get ready. You'd beat me there every time if I didn't have a head start, and how would that look to Lanie and the boys?" she asks, laughing at the look of horrified indignation on his face._

_"Well, I have two things to say about that. Firstly, I refer you back to your previous point about our dates. You'll just have to get ready faster," he grins, stealing a kiss from her open, surprised looking mouth._

_"And the other thing?"_

_"Since we'll be waking up together…no longer a problem."_

_They lock eyes, and Castle holds his breath while Kate processes this slightly…okay, wildly presumptuous remark._

_It takes a beat or two, but then she nods as if accepting his point, and he knows it's going to be okay._

_"Your place or mine?" she asks, and Castle collapses forward onto the bed, face down, with a whoosh of relief._

_"Don't care, as long as we're both there," she hears him say, though his reply is muffled by the thick mattress topper._

_When he looks up at her, his eyes are smoking with pure, erotic want. "I'm glad we cleared that up. So…you gonna make me wait right now?" he asks, cocking one eyebrow saucily before he leans in to kiss her._

_Her moan of appreciation when his mouth covers hers, coupled with the slide of her hand between their naked bodies to grasp him firmly in her palm, tells him that the answer is a no._

_Definitely no more waiting._

* * *

Kate stretches further back against the downy-soft pillows placed strategically behind her head and closes her eyes, luxuriating in the off-kilter sensation of floating. Like the air bubble in a spirit level tipped off plane, she bobs back and forth at the whim of the lake. Well, the lake and Castle's control over the oars, which at times seems to be scant.

"This thing have an anchor?" he asks, examining the bottom of the old wooden rowing boat.

"Nope," replies Kate, popping the 'p' of the word between her lips with glee. "We're adrift, Castle. Cut loose, floating free, drifting aimlessly, coasting, nomadic, going with the flow, far from civilization."

She grins to herself, tugging her cream straw Trilby further down over her eyes, crossing one ankle over the other with exaggerated ease before simply closing her eyes.

"Y—you don't seem to be worried that we're…adrift," Castle responds, looking over the side of the boat, causing it to rock more vigorously.

"Adrift about two hundred yards off-shore," mutters Kate, clearly amused. "This isn't the Atlantic Ocean, Castle. We're fine. Besides, if you're really worried you can row us back in."

Castle ignores Kate's sensible advice, choosing to stick with his own more vivid and dramatic imaginings. "I read about Lake Mohegan online. You know there are hidden underwater shelves quite close to shore…sudden drops of twenty feet or more. This thing gets to be sixty feet deep out there," he says, scanning the navy blue expanse of water behind them with his hand over his eyes.

"Pass me the sunscreen please?" yawns Kate, her limbs still heavy after their earlier exploits in the bedroom.

She watches Castle distractedly hand her the bottle of fragrant lotion, before resuming his concerned scrutiny of the wide, tree-lined expanse of water.

"I think I brought my dad's old compass. It's inside the picnic basket, if that's any help," she tells him, poking his calf with her bare toes, while she wrestles with a smirk.

Castle frowns. "A…a compass? Beckett, we're still in sight of land. What do we need with a compass?"

"_Exactly!_"

Kate grins, humming to herself as she squeezes a dollop of cold sun lotion into her palm before spreading it up both arms and across her chest. "Nothing to worry about. Anyway, I thought you had big plans to go skinny-dipping? Kind of hard to get in there with your clothes off if you're afraid of the water."

She's laughing at him and he can see it as plain as the cheeky grin on her startlingly pretty face.

"Actually," he begins, attempting to maintain some dignity with a well-aimed rebuttal, "I thought we could save the skinny-dipping until after it gets dark."

"Oh?" murmurs Kate, sliding the strap of her white tank off one shoulder to smooth cream over her skin.

"Mm. I checked the map—"

"Map? What map?" mutters Kate, focusing on her tan lines, a sight that's drawing Castle's attention too.

"In the mail center."

Kate stops mid-smear and looks up, giving him a blank look.

"Above the key rack just inside the front door. There was a local map. _Anyway_, the nearest designated swimming beach is just a little way down there," he reminds her, pointing towards a spot in the distance where Kate can just make out a few colorful dots; the bobbing heads of people swimming.

"Are you trying to tell me that the man who once rode a police horse _naked_ through Central Park is shy all of a sudden? Because you didn't seem too shy this morning when you dragged me over to the window to—"

Castle's phone rings and he has honestly never been so glad to be interrupted. Things maybe got a little out of hand when he positioned Kate in front of the open bedroom window, her hands braced on the sill, his naked body draped over hers from behind after she made that life-altering promise not to make him wait for anything ever again…like darkness to fall, for example.

* * *

"Ryan? Everything okay?"

Kate sits bolt upright the second she hears her colleague's name pop out of Castle's mouth. She almost dislodges her hat, which she just manages to catch and right at the very last second. The rowing boat rocks violently and Castle emits a squeak as he grabs hold of the side to hang on. The wooden oars loll worryingly in the U-shaped rowlocks affixed to either side of the small vessel, but Kate and Castle's attention is now focussed on the phone call and nowhere else.

"What? Oh, nothing," he says, shaking his head at Kate, who can't yet hear what Ryan is saying. "How can I help?"

"_Where are you? Is that water I can hear?" asks Ryan._

"Eh…I'm in the tub…taking a bath," offers Castle, sounding hesitant and unconvincing even to his own ears. He makes a 'what the heck' face at Kate who just shakes her head and crosses her legs, primed to listen to the rest of the call.

"_And you're not alone." Ryan's salacious, mischievous tone has Castle's eyebrows shooting up into his hairline._

"What?" mouths Kate, beginning to look a little more worried.

She crawls across the bottom of the boat to reach Castle's side, setting them pitching and rolling violently on the lake as the weight distribution in the old vessel shifts off-balance.

"Uh…what makes you say that, Kevin?" asks Castle, trying to play nonchalant while fighting a sudden bout of queasiness.

"_I heard a woman squeal, Castle, and you're taking a bath at one in the afternoon? Alone? I don't think so, buddy. No. No point trying to fob us off with your 'I'm totally innocent' routine. And hey, just wait 'til we tell Beckett. Right, Javi?"_

Castle is indignant on two fronts, maybe even three. First of all _he_ is the one who squealed, and it was a manly squeal caused by the very real fear of their boat capsizing. Second of all, they'd _tell Beckett_? The little snitches! And third of all…why would they think Beckett would even care, if they don't already suspect that they're together—

Holy crap!

"You'd tell Beckett that I had a woman in my _tub?_ What kind of a friends are you?"

"Friends who know a friend who owns a Ferrari," crows Ryan, in triumph.

"Yeah, man," chimes in Esposito. "And has access to Knicks floor seats."

Kate is straining to blurt out, _"The damn car is in the shop, you blackmailing rats,"_ down the phone at her two subordinates. But Castle manages to hold her back, inadvertently toppling her onto the bench seat he's sitting on, so that she's now lodged between his legs.

Mm, things just started looking up.

He's wearing cream colored cargo shorts and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons undone to his sternum. He had a few more fastened before they left the bedroom, but Kate just looked at him, shook her head slowly, stepped in close and liberated another couple of small, pearly buttons from their tiny holes while she smudged her lips over his and slid her hands into the back pockets of his shorts to squeeze his ass. He's loving it: when she takes charge of him like that. So now his shirt is just kind of rakishly hanging off him, helping him top up his tan.

* * *

"_So,_" drawls Castle, grinning possessively when Kate leans back against him, her warm skin hitting his bare chest, her fingers curling around the good few inches of thigh emerging from beneath the hem of his shorts to caress the light brown hair on his legs.

"So?" repeats Ryan, and it's only then that he realizes he's become so lost in Kate's touch that he's forgotten to ask anything else…like why they hell are calling him right now when he could be rolling around the bottom of this rowing boat with their boss/his lover, doing unspeakably pleasurable things on a pile of fluffy pillows.

Castle clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. So…why are you calling _exactly_? I mean, aside from gouging me out of my car."

"Gouging? Ugly, man. Sounds suspiciously like bribing. And we would never bribe, would we Ryan?" comes Espo's voice.

They must have him on speaker.

"Extorting, extracting, squeezing, wringing…_blackmailing_," Kate whispers in his ear, sending a shot of molten lava down his spine when her soft lips caress the shell and the lobe.

His girlfriend is like a walking thesaurus. A thesaurus walking around on the longest, sexiest legs he's ever had the good fortune to have wound up around his neck…and he finds that so damn hot!

"Yeah, cause extortion is illegal my friends," grins Castle, squeezing Kate's knee. "And you being cops an' all…" he tails off, leaving the threat (is he really making threats?) hanging in the Connecticut air. Time to wind this wind up of a phone call down.

"Anyway guys, as much fun as sharing my bath with you has been, water's starting to cool. So without wanting to be rude, what's this all about?" he adds quickly, before they laugh at him for his pathetic attempt at intimidation. And truthfully, he's now simply desperate to get off the phone and focus on Kate.

He hears Ryan clear his throat and whisper, "Oh, God. No, _you_ tell him," to Esposito.

Kate and Castle exchange a concerned look.

"Guys? You're starting to freak me out here. Would one of you just tell me what's going on? Why're you calling?"

"It's Beckett," Esposito finally says.

Kate's fingers contract around Castle's thigh, her grip veering towards painful.

Castle is the one who clears this throat this time. "Eh…Beckett? What about Beckett? She's okay, right?" he adds, because he knows it would be unnatural for him not to ask, that it would ring alarm bells with the boys if he weren't to express some amount of concern.

"Not sure, bro. We were kind of hoping you might know where she is right now."

Castle closes his eyes when he answers. "She went away for the weekend with her new—"

He stops speaking. He lets out a puff of warm air from his lungs, finding that he's unable to lie so directly to their friends. He looks to Kate with pleading eyes, utterly unsure what to do.

"Kate?" he mouths, with his hand over his cell phone. "I can't…"

"Ask them what the problem is," she whispers, giving him an encouraging nod.

"Sorry, guys. This line is bad. Why are you worried about Beckett? This is her first weekend off in ages. Maybe she just turned her phone off…or she's out of cell coverage."

* * *

Castle shrugs when Kate urges him to be more specific, but then Ryan starts talking, and they switch focus as one to listen to him. His voice has lost all of the teasing humor and lightness of earlier, suggesting that he maybe got distracted from the original purpose of the phone call by the sound of what he thought was Castle in his bathtub. From the strain and concern in Ryan's tone, this is clearly a lot more than a random social call.

"There's been a break-in."

Castle frowns and they both lean closer to his cell phone in anticipation. Kate has to bite her tongue not to cut in to the call in frustration at the unhurried pace with which information is unspooling. She gestures to Castle instead – a forward rotating motion of her hand to indicate that he should speed things up, accompanied by an urging arch of both eyebrows.

"A break-in where? At Beckett's apartment?"

"No. No, at 299 1st Avenue," says Ryan.

"What's at 299—"

Beckett grabs Castle's forearm, her nails digging sharply into the tanned flesh, making him wince and forcing him to bite back a yelp. She hisses in his ear. "Montgomery's house."

"Is Evelyn okay? The kids?" asks Castle, talking over Esposito, who is still explaining what Castle has just learned from Kate – that the address is Captain Montgomery's old house.

"Yeah. They're fine. CSU is over there now combing the property for clues. But we can't get a hold of Beckett and there are files missing—"

Castle pulls his head away from the phone to stare at Kate. His cell phone rests in his hand, abandoned, looking like a fish out of water.

"Your call," he mouths, giving her a gentle, encouraging look.

Kate closes her eyes and her grasp on Castle's arm grows softer, less panicked. He sees her beseeching look as soon as her eyelids lift and her lashes flicker. She's torn, but she knows she needs to do the right thing here. Their personal situation must be put to one side if Captain Montgomery's wife and kids are in any danger. Whatever he did in the past, she owes the man her life, and she owes his family protection, since Roy chose to save Kate in lieu of staying alive to guarantee his own family's safety and their future happiness.

"I'm sorry," she mouths, slipping her hand into Castle's and interlacing their fingers. Then she clears her throat and takes the phone from his other hand.

"Guys? Hey, guys, it's me. Beckett," she explains, to a long, eerie pause filled with dumbfounded silence. "Go back over what happened. Start at the beginning."

_TBC..._


	41. Chapter 41 - Rumor Has It

A/N: I'd like to preface this chapter by just saying a big thank you for welcoming this story back with open arms. You guys are unendingly patient and encouraging.

* * *

**Chapter 41: Rumor Has It**

By the time they near shore they know four facts: that files and a laptop belonging to Roy Montgomery have been stolen from his former home; that no other property appears to be missing; that Evelyn managed to get a couple of shots off, striking and wounding the burglar; and that the privacy Kate and Castle had hoped to enjoy for the first few weeks or even months of their relationship is now at an end.

If there's a fifth fact in amongst all of this, though this one is untrue, it's that the boys now believe that Castle and Beckett were in the bathtub together when they called, which, while not good, is not exactly a disaster. Neither of them has said anything yet, but Ryan's voice, when he was finally capable of speech, told them volumes about just how surprised he was to discover that they were together at the time of the call. Despite several years of flirtation, mindreading, and the rare level of faithful companionship shared by the two partners through thick and thin, he was still surprised.

Esposito, for his part, failed to utter a single word for the remainder of the call.

* * *

Castle pulls the oars towards him and then pushes them away again, working his shoulders, triceps, back and biceps, along with his quads, hamstrings, glutes, lats and core with every catch and drive of the varnished wooden blades through the water, bringing them homeward.

Kate sits facing the writer, as well as the approaching shoreline, watching the spectacular exhibition of muscle power beneath his mostly open shirt in silence. But her enjoyment of this enticing display of her partner's physical strength is muted by the reason for their premature return to dry land. They're going back to the cabin to pack up their things in order to return to the city much earlier than they had planned. The call from the boys is cutting short their mini-vacation by a day and a night, and Kate can't figure out which of them is more disappointed.

They haul the old wooden rowboat up over the strip of sandy, shingled beach together, dragging it back the way they had come just a couple of hours earlier. When the boat is safely back in its old resting spot, nestled in the shallow grave of the barren, damp dip in the surrounding vegetation that it previously occupied, Castle stands up stiffly, surveying the items they need to remove from the belly of the craft's bare, damp hull.

"We'll come back," says Kate, uttering the first words either of them have really said since they ended the call with the Twelfth and began heading landward.

Castle turns to look at her, his arms laden with throw pillows and a folded tartan rug. "Are you asking or telling?" he queries, hugging the bedding to his chest.

"I…I'm—" She looks at him beseechingly, suddenly unsure of the answer herself. "Help me out here?" she says, her eyes suddenly filling with terrified tears.

Castle immediately drops the pillows and the throw back into the boat and rounds the short, pointed, wooden prow to join her. "Hey," he murmurs soothingly, opening his arms to gather her in against his chest, "of course we'll be back," he whispers softly, pressing the words into her hair. "Of course we will."

"But what if—" She chokes on the thought that's terrifying her most, and the words simply won't come. They remain lodged in her throat like prickled barbs, while Castle strokes the warm length of her back trying to ease her fears.

"Kate," he whispers, drawing back to gently cradle her face in his hands so that she can see the sincerity and seriousness in his eyes when he speaks. "We _will_ be back. Okay? Whatever this is, we'll come back out here next chance we get. I promise. You owe me skinny-dipping in the lake and a picnic on the dock at sunset don't forget."

She sniffles around a laugh. "Yeah, right," she nods, dropping her forehead against Castle's shoulder and swaying there for a minute or two while he holds her close and she gets her thoughts back in perspective.

"Let's get hold of the facts before we panic, okay?" he murmurs, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

He skims the back of her bare arm with his thumb, distracting her with the steady repetition of this metronomic movement, while she listens to his heart beat confidently in his chest.

They both smell of exotic floral and coconut sunscreen blended with the heat of the day, their backs beaded with sweat from the effort of hauling the heavy old boat up the gentle incline above the lake. This is a new them, one that has never existed before in the air-conditioned cool of her Charger or the cranky, ineffectual heat of the bullpen in winter, on the streets of Manhattan at dawn for a body drop or in their regular booth at Remy's over lunch. For the very first time they smell the same. It's a small fact and maybe insignificant, but it's a start and it's new, and for now it's all the burnished armor Kate needs to cloak herself in, enabling her to kiss the dip below her partner's throat, gently pat his chest and then ease herself out of his embrace to stand tall in front of him. Finally, they can pick up their belongings and head into the cabin. She's ready.

* * *

Kate remakes the bed and begins to pack while Castle takes a shower. He comes out of the bathroom a short while later carrying his black leather travel kit packed with toiletries, a towel slung low around his hips.

Kate drops the shirt she was in the process of folding onto the bed immediately and comes towards him. "You're not making this easy," she admits, smiling bashfully. She allows herself to be encircled by his arms once more, luxuriating in all the bare, damp, shower-fresh skin she can feel beneath her hands all at once.

"Let's just get back to the city, okay? Find out what CSU has managed to collect, what the canvas has thrown up, and then we can go home to yours tonight. Continue our vacation," he promises, kissing her deeply.

Kate moans softly at the pleasurable pressure of Castle's mouth opening against hers, lips moving artfully, tongue sliding, stroking, sucking, so warm and fruitful. But it's a sound of desire and of protest both; she wants him right here, right now, so desperately, but they're running short of time to get back to the precinct to hear what the boys have found out. And to face the music, inevitably; whatever joke-infused little tune Ryan and Esposito intend having them dance to.

"What if the break-in means what we fear? I don't want this case to swallow us up."

Kate's concerns are very real. She knows all about Smith and the deal put in place by Montgomery to keep her safe. If her dead Captain's house has been specifically targeted, if someone is digging around looking for incriminating information...

"Hey," Castle says gently, stroking her hair away from her face. "We're solid, Kate. Whatever happens," he promises, pressing a reassuring kiss to the middle of her forehead.

She hopes he's right. He has to be right.

* * *

Kate is taking her turn in the shower, her hair laced with a veil of shampoo suds, when Castle raps his knuckles on the doorjamb and then pops his head around the bathroom door.

"Where does this blanket live?" he asks, holding up the neatly folded, hand-stitched, patchwork quilt.

"My old bedroom," Kate replies, after tugging the shower curtain aside and squinting through a sliding avalanche of foam to see which blanket he is referring to. "Just lay it on the bottom of the bed. I'll put it in the closet before we leave."

Ten minutes later, with her hair wrapped up in a towel, her jeans back on, along with a plain white t-shirt and her city boots, Kate goes hunting for Castle. She doesn't have to go far to find him.

"Have you been in here all this time?" she asks, watching him practically levitate above the surface of her childhood bed at being caught red-handed snooping around her room.

"Uh—" Castle scrunches up his nose, wincing while trying to look adorable enough to be let off the hook. "Don't be mad."

"Why would I be mad?" asks Kate, her hands on her hips, one eyebrow cocked. "We're leaving for the city in fifteen minutes and you're—" Kate tails off when she stops to assess the scene before her. "Castle, what are you _doing_?" she asks, staring down at the item in his hands.

"Getting to know you better?" he suggests, with a question in his voice and a further accompanying wince at having been caught.

There are items spread out all over the comforter – her entire collection of Nancy Drew books, sparkly stickers, her old diary, a bunch of hippy-looking jewelry she'd forgotten she ever owned, Girl Scout badges she never got around to sewing onto her uniform, a collection of pins she and a friend made one wet summer's day when they were stuck indoors with nothing better to do. There's even her old flower press, the one her dad made for her when she was ten from two roughly cut squares of wood, holes drilled in each corner with large bolts and wing nuts to secure it together and add the pressure required to press the flowers. A giant, cheerful sunflower sticker, complete with googly eyes, adorns the center of the lid, tiny little black beads shivering in the middle of each large iris with every tiny movement of the press.

"Did you—" she asks, picking her old journal up off the bed and flicking through page after page lined with her own familiar girlish scrawl.

"No. No, _absolutely_ not. I know I can be nosy at times, but I will _always_ respect your privacy now that we're—"

Kate gives him an incredulous stare that says, _'Really?' _without room for any ambiguity.

But Castle is serious and he nods to reinforce his point. "Look, I used to pry because you never gave me much of yourself…in the beginning…or ever. But now…_now_, I don't need to pry anymore because you've given me everything, Kate. I have everything I need. And hopefully I'll learn even more along the way."

Kate sinks down on the single bed beside him, bumping her shoulder against his in a gesture of belief and reconciliation as they bounce on the springy mattress. "That's…that's really sweet," she tells him, taking his hand.

"_This_, on the other hand, is _awesome_," he declares, holding up a watch with a black plastic strap and a colorful face. "_Wonder Woman_, Beckett?" he grins, instantly shrinking the issues they face back home down to size with his delighted, boyish smile. "I had no idea you were a fan. Personally, I loved the outfit more than her powers," he prattles on, before adding, "_And_ I think we just found your costume for next Halloween."

"Very funny," says Kate, taking the watch from him and putting it back into the keepsake box he's been rummaging through while she was in the bathroom getting ready.

* * *

"I…eh…looked in here too," he admits, more somberly, lifting the flower press into his lap. "You…you really keep _everything_."

Kate purses her lips and then she nods slowly, allowing Castle to do the honors: spinning open the wing nuts on all four corners of the wooden press before easing off the wooden lid. Layers of cardboard lined with tissue paper easily come apart to reveal the flowers dried and compressed to paler versions of their original selves, each one held safely in between. Kate's handwriting annotates a short description recounting the origin of each preserved flower with a date and an occasion. All of the blooms are captioned, except for one.

"There are flowers from your high school prom corsage in here. From your first Valentine's bouquet, a rose from your mom's funeral, and what's this one? Looks…more recent."

Castle sets the other layers from the press carefully aside to focus on the bottom tier.

Kate carefully lifts the delicate blooms from their bed of tissue paper and cradles them in the palm of her hand. "They're from the bouquet you brought to the hospital when you came to visit me after my surgery," she tells Castle. "I couldn't bear to throw them away. Too…too important for that," she admits, squeezing his hand. "I tucked them between the pages of _Heat Wave_ for the journey up. Then I pressed them properly as soon as I could."

Castle is choked and close to speechless. He touches the faded, papery remains of what he can still recall was once a vibrant, red Gerbera daisy. He chose the flowers himself, his hands sweating and his heart racing with the excitement of finally being called to the hospital to visit her. He had believed that this was it – finally the truth was out there and they could talk about their relationship openly and about their feelings for one another. The color of these blooms were intended to cheer Kate up, as much as they were supposed to signal the dawning of a bright new future for both of them.

If he could have, he would have taken that bouquet away with him that day after the crushing disappointment and humiliation of finding Josh sitting by Kate's bedside, followed by the empty round of nothingness exchanged between them in the fleeting moments of his visit. He would have taken those flowers and thrown them in the nearest trashcan right along with his hopes. So, today, he is delighted to discover that Kate seems to have been the more sentimental and optimistic of the two for once.

"We…we misread one another for so long," he says, so quietly that she has to strain to hear him, with his head dipped low and his hands running restlessly through his hair. "So _stupid_, Kate," he adds, with such vehemence and such longing, fierce tears suddenly swimming in his eyes when he turns to look at her. "I thought you didn't care, and now it turns out you just cared too much."

"But we finally figured it out," Kate replies, swiping a tear of her own from her warm cheek after clearing her constricted throat. "And now we're going back to real life, only this time we're doing it together."

* * *

Later, as they pack up the car for the journey home, Castle realizes that, however short, this trip has fully served its intended purpose. He has visited the site of Kate's mysterious, painful, solitary recovery and found himself so much a part of it, woven into the daily fabric of it, even when he doubted her love.

He knows now that he was there: her entire recovery, he was there, and he was loved, not forgotten. He was there in the heart carved into the dock, in the copies of his books stacked neatly beside her bed, in the stones she skimmed over the lake, in the journal entries she wrote late at night, and in the pressed flowers kept safe in her old bedroom. For every labored breath and with each painful step, in her heart and in her mind, he was there.

_TBC…_

* * *

_Note: Extra thanks for this chapter go to WRTRD for her help in batting ideas back and forth in relation to the contents of Kate's childhood bedroom. We had some fun with that one. _


	42. Chapter 42 - Bathgate

_A/N: I meant to say at the end of the last chapter that my dad made me a flower press about thirty years ago, just like the one I described for Kate, and I still have it. If you're handy at all, it's such a great gift for a little girl. All you need are two thin but sturdy squares of wood, drill a hole in each corner that will line up with the one below, four long threaded bolts with matching wing nuts to tighten and add pressure, some cardboard layers and maybe sheets of paper towel to nestle the flowers between, and you're good to go._

_Thank you once again for your kindness and your enthusiasm for this story._

* * *

_**Chapter 42: Bathgate**_

Castle drives them back to the city. They're going against the flow of late-afternoon traffic, which helps them make up some of the time they spent reminiscing in Kate's childhood bedroom. But no matter the gravity of what lies ahead, Castle's pretty sure that neither of them would give up those precious moments they shared and the things they learned in that small room. A room filled with innocent secrets, where the air still smells like bubblegum and her closet holds traces of Estée Lauder's 'Beautiful' Eau de Toilette, with its floral top notes of rose, mandarin and marigold; a favorite scent of her mother's.

"Should I stop…pick something up?" asks Castle, as they rumble across Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and exit down onto FDR Drive.

"Hmm?" murmurs Kate, tearing her head away from staring out of the window, where she has been lost in her own thoughts for the last forty minutes, to look at him.

The car has remained silent for the duration of the ride back; no music and no singing, in contrast to the lively, excited trip out to the cabin just a day and a half ago.

"Pick something up?" she repeats, her frown indicating that she has no idea what Castle means.

"Yeah. Coffee? Pastries, donuts, maybe Chinese or something?"

Kate's eyes narrow with suspicion. "Castle, is this about that phone call earlier today, when we were out on the boat? Because if it is, those cops will smell that bribe before we even exit the elevator."

"You're right. You're right. Of course, you're right. I should go with the Knicks tickets. I'll put a call into Eddy," he says, reflexively reaching for his phone.

Kate shakes her head and then slumps down in her seat. "I didn't mean they would literally _smell_ the food. I meant that anything nice you do for them will be seen as—"

"I know," Castle cuts in, setting the phone back in its holder to rake a hand through his hair. "I know that already. But I'm nervous," he finally admits.

Kate sits up straighter, curling round to face him within the constraints of her seatbelt. "What do you have to be nervous about?"

"The whole…big brother routine, losing my place as your partner, Gates, this case…_lots_ of things."

Kate lays her hand on his jean-clad thigh, sorry that he had to lose the linen shorts in order to come home. "Okay, you need to take a breath, and then let it out slowly and do it all over again. It's called breathing, in case you forgot, and it comes highly recommended for humans. Castle, it'll be fine," she adds more sympathetically, giving his leg an encouraging squeeze.

Castle whips his head round to glance at her, before returning his eyes to the road. "You don't know that. I only get to be around you all day because Gates tolerates my presence in her squad."

"Well, I do a lot more than tolerate you now. _So_…you don't _need_ a reason to hang out with me anymore. Not a fake one anyway. I want you around, Castle. And if it's not at the Twelfth, then we'll figure something out."

"Like what?" He sounds desperate now; having worked himself up into quite a froth while Kate was calmly staring out the window.

"Like…like—" She shakes her head and shrugs, trying to come up with something to appease him.

"_See!_ You don't have an answer," he snaps, anxiously.

"Because I don't want to push us into something we're not ready for."

"Like what? What are we not ready for?"

"Castle," she sighs, really not wanting to get into this discussion right now, what with everything else they have going on.

"No, I want to hear what we're not ready for because back _there_—" He thumbs over his shoulder to indicate the distant environs of her dad's cabin.

"Okay, back there was just you and me. No job and…and no family or friends to consider."

"You think our family or our friends would want us to be unhappy on their account?"

"No, of course not. But I want this to work long term, and so I don't think we should rush into anything just because we might not be able to work together anymore."

"You think they'll have said something?" Castle asks soberly, finally getting to the core issue.

"I hope not. But for all we know Gates is in on the pool and I'm pretty sure they're paying out on that bet right now," Kate murmurs, staring out the window again as they pass beneath the dark shadow cast by the Queensboro Bridge.

* * *

Silence descends on the car once again, as they both rehash the angst-filled exchange they've just participated in, until Castle takes a deep breath and quickly reaches out to squeeze Kate's clasped hands.

"I'm sorry. Look, I don't mean to push, Kate. I'm just…I don't want things to go back to the way they were before."

Kate turns to face him again, tilting her head to one side. "There is not a chance of that happening. Believe me," she grins, reaching over the central console to slide her palm flat across Castle's thigh until she can dip her fingers down between his legs at crotch level.

Castle yelps and jumps in his seat when her pinky finger strokes him in the most intimate and sensitive of places, causing him to unexpectedly take his foot off the gas for a second. The driver behind honks his horn at their sudden deceleration, and Kate quickly removes her hand back to her own lap.

"Might be a good idea if we get there in one piece," Castle chuckles, quickly glancing in the rearview mirror at the U-Haul truck riding just inches from their tail.

"Yeah. A moving violation for public lewdness would definitely make it tricky to fly under the radar," Kate chuckles in response.

* * *

"So, just to be clear", Castle says a few minutes later, after they exit the car, once they're safely parked in the Precinct's parking garage. "That would be a no to moving in with me? Hypothetically speaking. Were I to ask the question."

Kate stares at him across the shiny hood of his SUV, her bottom lip pinioned between her teeth. "Too soon," she murmurs, giving him a gentle, half-smile, though the idea is a damn sight less terrifying when he says it like that than she thought it would be. "Let's just…give ourselves a little time to enjoy all the new stuff, the fun stuff, the _naughty_ stuff, before we…"

Castle frowns, caught up in her version of events, yet keen to understand the rest of her thinking. "Before what?"

Kate's eyes begin to sparkle, her cheeks rising into a smile. "Before you have to pick my dirty socks up off the bathroom floor," she grins, rounding the front of the car to press a super-fast, breathless kiss to his surprised mouth. "Now, come on. Before someone sees us."

* * *

They stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the elevator; alone, yet somehow still feeling surrounded.

"What's the plan?" whispers Castle, as the car rises at a much faster pace than he remembers it ever achieving before.

"Plan?" frowns Kate, eyes focused straight ahead. "Plan for what?"

"For the uh… To deal with the—" He's just in the process of stretching out his pinky finger to stroke along the outside of Kate's hand when the elevator doors fly open on the busy homicide floor.

Kate takes a step out, hissing, "No touching, for starters."

"And what else?" Castle asks, hurrying to catch up with her, feeling utterly unprepared for this.

"Just…act normal," she mutters, for Castle's ears only. "I'm sure they've probably forgotten by now, with the case and everyth—"

Kate tails off into stunned silence as they round the corner into the bullpen and she gets a first glimpse of her desk. She stops so suddenly that Castle goes careening into her back, having to prevent himself from toppling her over by bringing his hands to rest on her hips, which is not a helpful look, all things considered, and instantly breaks Kate's "no touching" commandment.

They stand there for a long moment staring wordlessly at the colorful little tableau in front of them, their mouths slightly agape, eyes popped wide.

A row of bright yellow rubber ducks are lined up diagonally across the center of Kate's desk. The vibrantly colored bath toys look jarringly out of place alongside the elegant subtlety of her family of elephants. The lead duck is dressed as a cop, complete with hat, badge and gun. The letters 'NYPD' are emblazoned across its chest in stark, black lettering. Following closely on the tail of 'Cop Duck' is what appears to be, on closer inspection, a second duck dressed as William Shakespeare: his hair long and dark around the white, starched collar of his Elizabethan costume. This duck is bald on top, much to Castle's disgust. A scroll held in the duck's…wing, bears the words: "To quack or not to quack".

Castle rolls his eyes at this abuse of one of the greatest speeches by one of the greatest writers in the English language, and then he moves on to the remaining pair of rubber ducks, bringing up the rear of this sorry little waterless flotilla. These two simply wear dark sunglasses, one sporting a pink beak, the other bright red.

Kate is acutely aware that Ryan and Esposito are standing to one side, enjoying the shocked look on both partners' faces. She turns to them now, her steely mask dropped back into place.

"These guys are you two dopes, I take it?" she asks, picking up the rubber duck at the very end of the line. "Pink lipstick is yours, Espo, I assume?" she adds, shoving the duck against the gaping detective's chest so hard that it squeaks.

Taking a leaf out of Kate's playbook, Castle swipes the cop duck and the writer duck for himself, before lobbing the red-beaked duck in Ryan's direction.

"Alexis is gonna love these," he grins, setting them down on his chair with exaggerated care. "Thanks, guys," he smiles cheerily, before turning to Kate with his eyebrows raised in question. "_Coffee?_"

* * *

The buzz of the bullpen resumes as soon as Castle heads off to the break room and Kate begins opening drawers to pull out her folder and notebook, pens, markers and her cell phone.

Ryan and Esposito retake their seats in numb silence, chastened or thrown off their stride for a moment by the cool, calm, nonchalant treatment their prank has received from these two very private people.

Castle hands Kate a cup of coffee and then takes a sip from his own, perching on the edge of the desk next to her so they can look at the murder board together. Their thighs touch, her partner's body heat instantly seeping through the fabric of her jeans, and Kate shivers, having to force herself to focus on the case details sketched out in front of her.

"So, tell me what you've got so far?" she asks, nodding in the direction of the half-empty white board.

Ryan opens his mouth to answer her, but before he can say anything Esposito steps in to stop him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up a second," he says, raising one hand. "You're telling me you have _nothing_ to say about '_Bathgate'_?"

Kate looks right at Esposito, empowered by his boldness. "That's right. Because it never happened."

"That can't be true," chips in Ryan to backup his partner, emphatically shaking his head. "Castle _said_ he was taking a bath when I called. We _heard_ a woman's voice in the background before you came on the line. We were both on that call. That's enough for corroboration. We even heard you two splashing around—"

"In a _boat_," corrects Kate.

"On a _lake_," adds Castle.

"What? What lake?" asks Esposito, looking from one smug partner to the other.

"So…you two _weren't_ in the bathtub together?" asks Ryan, appearing bitterly disappointed by this news.

Kate is sorely tempted to tell them that they interrupted their trip _before_ they could enjoy the shared experience of luxuriating in the big old cast iron bathtub at the cabin. But she wisely bites her tongue.

"Once and for all, we were in a _rowboat_. Now, if we could please turn our attention to the slightly more important matter of the break-in at the Montgomery residence. What do we know?"

The boys are either too shocked or too disappointed to even think to ask what they were doing out on a lake in a boat, though Kate is pretty sure that this question will rear its ugly head soon enough. But for now, they all focus their thoughts on the case in hand. And as she feels Castle's shoulder come to rest against hers, the hot coffee he's just made flooding her veins with much needed caffeine for the long night ahead, he is suddenly a vital point of solidity and great comfort in amongst a day filled with disquiet and uncertainty.

"It's not good news, I'm afraid," admits Ryan, turning away to point at the board.

And so it begins...

_TBC..._

* * *

_Note: "Bathgate" is actually a small town in West Lothian, Scotland, located 20 miles from the City of Edinburgh. Thought you might like that amusing, useless factoid. :)_


	43. Chapter 43 - Epilogue

_A/N: To the guest reviewer who described themselves as a "nit-picky New Yorker" and couldn't understand Castle taking the RFK Bridge back to Manhattan in the previous chapter: if you read chapter 26 again you'll see I decided to set Kate's dad's cabin in Connecticut, rather than Upstate New York. _

_To quote: "Her dad's cabin is situated a few miles from the coast, between the towns of Fairfield and Bridgeport, Connecticut. It sits in a quiet tract of forest close to Lake Mohegan: a reservoir that is a popular fishing and hunting spot for locals and visitors alike." ENDS_

_So they weren't in fact coming back from Upstate. Hope that makes it clearer for you._

_Okay, on we go..._

* * *

**Chapter 43: Epilogue**

_**Five months later…**_

"Hey. Done unpacking already?" asks Castle, his voice rising with surprise.

He's drying his hands on a kitchen towel when Kate comes downstairs unexpectedly. An oily rag lies abandoned on the edge of the sink alongside a rusty red oil can and her grandpa's adjustable wrench.

"Furnace is working," he tells her proudly. "And I just put the kettle on. Was gonna bring you up a cup of tea."

Kate groans and then sits down heavily on a stool. "Too restless for tea. How about we take a walk down to the lake?" she asks, giving him a suggestive raise of her eyebrows. "I feel like walking. And I want to see the water."

"You need to take it easy."

"Castle, I'm _done_ taking it easy. And we are having that picnic and taking that skinny dip like I promised," she warns him, spinning the adjuster on the old wrench as she talks.

Castle laughs. "You're so cute and sexy when you're mad. Not to mention a little crazy. You know that?" he whispers, drawing Kate in for a hug.

"You're coddling me, Castle. No coddling. You promised," Kate complains, squirming out of his embrace.

"I crossed my fingers behind my back. So that particular promise is null and void. We can take a walk down to the lake if you like, but skinny dipping is out for a while yet, I'm afraid."

"Get your coat," she grouses, brushing past him to fetch her own outsize fluffy jacket from the easy chair in the corner.

Castle grabs his coat and struggles into it as he pulls the front door closed behind him with one sleeve still dangling down towards the floor. He clomps his way down the cabin's narrow wooden steps, and then he has to run down the path to catch up with Kate, whose long strides carry her closer and closer to the shore in no time.

The air temperature plunged for the first time last night, and there's a hoar frost coating the topmost leaves of the undergrowth. The crystalline layer of glitter that forms this beautifying strata is like a decoration offered up by Mother Nature, meant to cheer and welcome them upon arrival. The ice crystals catch the light as Castle hurries past, glinting and sparking where the sun dances, coating the hem of his black cashmere coat with a frosty beard as he sweeps by.

"Forgot your scarf," puffs Castle, as they near the end of the worn trail and emerge out from the trees and onto the shingled beach.

"Still coddling," mutters Kate, arching one eyebrow. She does however permit her partner to wrap the bright blue wool scarf around her neck and then button up the two sides of her flapping coat, before he finishes up by gently tucking the scarf into her upturned collar.

"Is it coddling if I take your hand to go out on the dock? Boards might be slippery."

Castle's patience seems endless these days, and Kate finds herself pretty much unable to say no to him about anything. She playfully bumps his shoulder now. "No. It's mandatory," she smiles contritely, slipping her cool hand into his warm one before stepping out onto the old wooden pier.

* * *

**_Five months ago…_**

The news was bad, as Ryan had warned them the day they returned to the precinct from their first trip out to Kate's dad's cabin and sat shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the murder board. They had cradled cups of coffee against their chests that afternoon; coffee to lend them some semblance of normality and comfort, though in truth something far stronger was called for.

In the week and a half that followed, the trail warmed up too fast and hot for them to ignore. A sinister daisy chain of clues surfaced to lead them from Orlando Costas and the Cazadores gang via Vicente Delgado, before looping back around for a second time to train their focus on Marisol Cartagena. The whole thing twisted and turned on a word or a revealing phrase dropped here and there; information wrung out after hours of intense interrogation. They were both hyped, primed and exhausted by it all. Their only solace, at the end of each day, was each other. They spent not a single night apart.

Eventually that daisy chain turned as deadly as razor wire, leading them on a downward spiral that brought them right to the door of Cole Maddox: the same sniper-for-hire who had killed Orlando Costas and had previously attempted to take Kate's life. As they planned their next move, Montgomery's involvement in the whole twisty mess had to remain a secret. Kate was adamant on that one point. Well, that and one other – no backup.

And so it was that, with the boys running interference with Gates and no additional support to speak off, the sniper got the drop on the unwitting partners in a poorly lit hotel room at the Rosslyn Hotel. He knocked Castle clean out with just a couples of surprise blows, disarmed Kate with professional ruthlessness, and then took off running for the rooftop. It wasn't long before the detective recovered and Maddox was being pursued to the top of the building. But what followed was a catalogue of mistakes and misjudgements: shots that missed their target, a blur of a chase on a barren, windswept, overlooked plateau. Unforeseen events turned the error of self-sufficiency, the miscalculation caused by grief, anger and desperation into a scenario where Kate eventually received the beating of her life. The big denouement had finally arrived, thirteen years and four months after the fact, and Kate Beckett was left blinking on the ground like a theatergoer after the house lights went up.

Maddox smiled as he left the detective dangling like a ragdoll off the side of the building. Her sole companion then was terror, her will to survive her only savior, while her cries remained unheard and unheeded for what felt like an eternity. Her strength was giving out, her faith in being rescued all but diluted to nothing by fear, until she called out his name one last time, and Castle finally appeared at the edge of the abyss to save her.

* * *

_**Present day…**_

They both remember his hands reaching out for hers, even now as they stand out on the far end of the boat dock surrounded by nature instead of the concrete jungle of the city. It happens all the time – outstretched fingers lead to flashbacks and to what might never have been. So much time has passed since that day, so much healing has taken place. But a noise or a flash of light, a nightmare or the mere loving stretch of his hand towards hers, and she is right back on that rooftop as surely as if the last five months hadn't happened.

"No skinny dipping this trip," he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead as a chill wind whips off the water to tug at their clothes. "But how about a bath? Next best thing, I promise," he whispers in her ear, as she squirms against his broad, thickly wrapped chest.

He has to work hard some days to cheer her. But now that he has her - has all of her - it's a pleasure, not a chore, to brighten Kate Beckett's day. He's getting better and better at it, or so he tells himself.

He left a red wooden heart on her desk the day they figured out that Orlando Costas' killer was the man who'd made an attempt on her life. It was meant to remind her of the carved heart containing their initials that remains on the end of the boat dock at her dad's place; on the exact same wooden board where they're standing now. His timing could not have been more perfect. The Post-It note he'd stuck inside the lid of the box had simply said: _"I give you my heart."_ Kate touches it now where it nestles inside a Man Size Kleenex in her coat pocket, polished edges as smooth and curved as—

"How long are we staying out here?" she asks, sweeping over the full swell in the center of the heart with her thumb.

"Winter's coming, so—"

"But you got the furnace working and…"

Kate stops talking in order to look at him, to look properly, to see what he means and what he actually wants when he answers her. She's trying not to take him for granted or to control their relationship in any way. This is one thing about them that's she's been working hardest to achieve – something fair and equal after all they've been through together and after all Castle has endured in the past.

"How about we try a couple of weeks? See how bored you are by then?"

Kate nods, and Castle watches the cloud lift from her eyes.

"Besides, the boys will be desperate to see you back at your desk before too long, and Alexis—"

"Alexis is coming out next weekend," Kate reminds him, ignoring his remark about her work.

She has an answer for everything some days. But Castle doesn't mind because it demonstrates her spirit; that the essence of her 'Kateness' is still there - determined and self-sufficient - however less to the fore it seems these days. It also proves that she hasn't been cowed by the battle she's had to ensure and by the fear of loss and threat that still surrounds them if they get the urge to dig back into her mother's case; if, or maybe when, new evidence should come to light.

Kate fingers the smooth contours of the red wooden heart in her pocket once more, feeling its solidity and warmth. She stares out across the steely-blue water, watching the clouds scudding overhead as they mimic the ripples on the surface of the reservoir like a mirror. She looks down at the old dock, scuffs the toe of her boot over the carved wooden heart at her feet, their initials scored deep for all eternity by her own hand, and then she turns her back on the lake, tugging on Castle's fingers to lead him back to shore.

* * *

**_Five months ago..._**

The beating she took was brutal: severe bruising over thirty percent of her body, a cracked rib, fractured finger and blunt force injury to her spleen caused by repeated, targeted kicks delivered to her back and side while she was already lying on the ground. This latter, non-penetrating injury was discovered during an abdominal ultrasound used to diagnose the severe pain Kate was experiencing on the left hand side of her body. Several days in hospital followed while she recovered and was monitored for signs of internal bleeding and any other organ damage; a period during which Castle never left her bedside.

When they finally left the hospital together, the writer was sporting the beginnings of a beard, something that seemed to distract and amuse or at least soften Captain Gates' demeanor sufficiently that she ignored Kate's knee-jerk resignation letter, delivered in response to her mandatory suspension for acting recklessly and without backup or the explicit prior knowledge and permission of her command. Gates chose to tuck the letter away in a drawer for safe-keeping instead of filing it with HR, while Kate's bruises faded from purple to green and yellow and frayed tempers calmed over time.

When her abdominal pain worsened and her blood pressure dropped dangerously low a couple of weeks later, Castle rushed her back to the hospital after finding her passed out on the bathroom floor at 3am. A second diagnostic scan went on to reveal a blindsiding fact. She was given the all clear on the splenic contusion and, after a period of watchful (worried) waiting, which included a further two weeks bed rest at home, she was finally given the thumbs-up on her unexpected pregnancy.

* * *

**_Present day…_**

"You ready for that cup of tea yet?"

"Castle, I want—"

"No," he says sadly, cupping her face in his hands as she stands in the middle of the living area at her dad's cabin looking like a disappointed child. "No coffee for a while, babe. Sorry. You know it's not good for the baby."

"Fine, tea then," she huffs, in what has become an almost daily ritual between them.

She snarks and he soothes and they tell each other it's okay. It is actually all okay, because they're together now, and their child is growing inside of her, and in just four more months they'll get to meet him or her. Even for Castle this thought is like a minor miracle. Kate Beckett is carrying his baby. And yes, it wasn't planned, but he has had so much fun reminding her how he must have knocked her up one of the first times they ever slept together; maybe even _the_ first time. He might be a few years older than her, but his virility, if it ever was, is certainly not in question now.

"You're doing it again," Kate complains, tugging on the front of his coat, a smile already flirting with the corners of her mouth.

"What?" grins Castle, catching the scintilla of a twinkle in her eye.

He might be playing innocent, but he knows exactly what he's doing. He's looking at her body with the burning heat that refuses to leave his gaze whenever he catches sight of her at odd moments – through the plate glass of the shower stall, the outline of her body blurred by the opacity of steam; getting dressed for bed late at night, her breasts already fuller, her abdomen rounder as she shimmies fine cotton shorts up over her thighs; or standing in front of one of the big windows in the loft, aimlessly staring out at the streets of SoHo down below, her mind utterly elsewhere for long minutes at a time while her hand rests comfortingly on the new firmness of her belly.

He loved her body before – its strength, its slenderness, her supple curves, toned muscles and flawless skin. He loves it all the more now that it's changing, and she's allowing him to experience those changes along with her. His only past experience of pregnancy, of being an expectant father, was miserable, right up until the day Alexis actually arrived. Meredith suffered her morning sickness with bad grace, and that should have been a warning to him of what was to come. But her vanity, as her body stretched and grew to accommodate her kicking, thriving infant daughter, was a tantrum too far. Her behavior during those nine months was something that utterly sickened Castle for its selfishness, certainly heralding the beginning of the end of their relationship for him. So to have the exact opposite with Kate, whom he loves far more and knows so much better than he ever did the actress, is a dream come true; the ultimate daddy do-over.

"Make the tea and bring it upstairs. I'll run the bath," she tells him, tugging on his scarf as she presses her cold lips against his eager mouth.

"Yes, ma'am," he grins, turning away to fire up the gas stove. He adds cookies, a pack of Goldfish crackers and a quart of chocolate peanut butter ice cream, along with two spoons, to the tray for good measure.

"Oh, and Castle," Kate adds as an afterthought, leaning over the banister to speak to him. Her face is alight with joy, her cheeks flushed a sensual, ripe pink that he hopes is more about him than the cold wind outside.

"Yeah?"

"Don't take all day," she adds, with a saucy wink.

**_The End_**

* * *

_A/N: I think they're "ready to make nice". ;)_

_A big, very sincere thank you to every single reader who supported this story along the way. It turned into a much longer journey than I originally intended. I was told recently by someone who I once considered a friend that they'd lost faith in my ability to finish multi-chapter fics, and that they weren't prepared to "invest their time" in my works-in-progress as a result. While that was hurtful, it also made me all the more grateful for each of you who were prepared to take that risk and invest your time in this story, as I have invested a lot of my own time. So, thank you again. Because you're what makes this a worthwhile endeavor. Liv x_


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